Level 28
by AriadneInLove
Summary: Sam and Jack's genetically engineered daughter has returned to the future but her attempts to influence fate have failed. A wedding is replaced by a funeral and Sam is left mourning, pregnant, and defenseless to a new evil on the rise.
1. Asylum

"**Level 28"**

_By "AriadneInLove"_

**DISCLAIMER:** This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

**SUMMARY**: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

**Cheyenne Mountain Complex, April 2052**

Level 28 was on fire. The Gate was set to self-destruct and the countdown rang in her ears like a deadly reminder of her failure. She ran through the hallways as swiftly as she could but she couldn't make her feet move as they once did. She felt exhausted, moving simply because stopping, she knew, would kill her. She looked down at the rubble flown around the floor and heard the squish of blood under her army boots that seemed to drape the walls.

_I know that blood anywhere_, she thought. _But mine's not going to join it._

She reached the door to the Gate Room, the red light of the sirens highlighting the sweat on her forehead. She fumbled with her ID card. She finally slid it through with trembling fingers. The floor began to shake as the blast door receded into the wall.

She ran in, the Gate already open. She didn't know to where but she didn't care. Any place was better than this one. Just as she ran onto the ramp, the Gate and alarms shut off. The blast doors opened on either side of the Gate and earthquakes stopped. Her back to the Gate, she looked up as the blast doors to the Control Room slid up, revealing a single feature looking down at her.

"Think you've won yet, love? 'Cause I'm just _dying_ to prove you wrong," she said loudly with a devious smirk, waving her arms like a mad woman with a zat in hand. Insanity was one of her trademarks.

The man bent over to the microphone and said, "One last chance, O'Neill! Join us or die."

She laughed. "I'm dead anyway. Might as well go down fighting."

And she carefully slid her hand into her uniform pockets and pulled out a small, round hand-held device made out of silver. She played with the buttons behind her back and took a large step back before ducking as the Gate sent the event horizon plunging forward.

As soon as it receded, she turned around and ran right into the Gate.

**February 2004**

Colonel Jack O'Neill made his way up the stairs to General Hammond's office. Major Carter was already inside wearing her blue uniform with that determined look as if some tragedy might ensue if she didn't give every detail of her scientific exploits to a very weary General. As soon as Jack walked in, General Hammond put on a smile and a look like Jack was his godsend.

"Colonel, welcome!" he said. "Turning in that report?"

Jack looked down at the half-assed report in his hands and nodded. He looked over at Sam with sad eyes. He was so happy to have her back but seeing her there brought back the inevitability of their relationship. It was easy to sneak glances at her while on a mission or around base because Daniel couldn't get his head out of his passionate little conversations and Teal'c couldn't care less, but around the General, he had to be careful. As sure as he was that Hammond knew about his feelings, he felt improper even looking at her as anything other than his subordinate.

He quickly looked back down at his report and saw that Hammond was waiting for him to give it to him. He slowly moved over to his desk but he refused to hand it to him. It took Hammond three pulls for Jack to let go.

"Something on your mind, Jack?" he asked. Sam was still looking up at him, her leg crossed. He looked over at Hammond and back at Sam and realized how ridiculous he was being.

"No, sir. Nothing important," he gulped. Hammond raised an eyebrow and looked over at Sam. He sighed and thanked him and Jack was off.

Just as the door closed he asked Sam, "Major, would you see what that was about please?"

She nodded and excused herself, running after him. "And could you tell him to stop eating around the reports!" she heard Hammond yell as the door closed again, holding up a slice of tomato with two delicate fingers.

She caught up with Jack on the way to the control room. "Colonel, hold up!" she yelled after him.

He stopped mid-step but didn't turn around. He didn't want to face her, no matter how glad he was to have her there again.

"Sir, what's going on? Is there something you want to talk to me about, or-"

"I doubt I could translate it, Major. Don't worry about it."

"Translate it, huh? No offense, sir, but I need to know if my commander is going to be daydreaming in the middle of a mission."

"I don't daydream. I just… my mind wanders, is all. You know I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize a mission."

"Lately, that hasn't been exactly true-"

"Carter, if you have something to say, just spit it out. What does it take with you, woman? If we get captured again, I'm sending _you_ to get interrogated. It'll be 4 years before they can get through the psychobabble and science jargon!"

"Stop changing the subject!"

"Are you raising your voice at a superior officer?"

She stopped, dumbstruck. She stared at him with narrowed eyes like he'd hit the lowest blow in years, since she first thought he was a womanizing bastard with a loaded gun… though that could have just as well been last week.

"All of a sudden you're my superior officer? After nearly 7 years of wanting me to go fishing and calling me Sam and pretending that we had _some_ sort of friendship basis going on? With all do respect, screw you sir!" she said and began to make her quick escape before she came to her senses when the sirens began to sound and crimson rays of light made their faces hide the truth once more.

They both ran to the control room, watching the airmen run with guns towards the gate room as the Iris began to close. But before it could close, it began to recede back into the gate.

"What the hell's going on, Walter?" Jack asked the sergeant.

Hammond came running down the stairs and asked the same thing.

Jack smiled. "Just asked that, sir."

Walter's jaw began to drop. He shook his head slowly with wide open eyes and shrugged. "I have no idea sirs. The Iris is not responding."

Sam went down to fiddle with the computers but she was stomped too. As much as she tried to bypass the outside command, they could not close the Iris. They were defenseless.

"Who do you think is doing this? Anubis? The Ree-tou again?" Jack asked, but Sam refused to answer, not that she had any idea who.

The Gate room began to rumble, the floor to shake. The airmen lost their aim and Hammond ordered them to retreat from the room. And then it stopped. The entire base was calm again.

They all paused to see what figure would walk through the event horizon. The alien came, rolling onto the ramp with a bang as if she'd jumped through the other side. She quickly drew her zat and pointed it at the control room.

"Close the Iris!" she yelled. Hammond nodded at Sam who placed her hand over the control panel. It quickly began to shut without resistance.

But just before it shut completely, a beam of fire came through the gate like staff weapons shooting blindly through the horizon. They caught the alien in the legs just as she was getting up, her zat sent flying across the room. The Iris finally closed and the Gate shut down but they could not send the paramedics. A hazmat team came running in and lifted her up into a stretcher and took her to the infirmary but she was bleeding all over the ramp.

After they took her away, Sam and Jack came down the stairs into the Gate room. Sam bent down next to the largest pool of blood and took a sample with her handkerchief. Sergeant Siler came running after them with a medical hazard bag. After all, there was no way to know what she was. They took the handkerchief to the lab and Jack and Sam were left alone as people ran about.

Jack looked up at Sam on the ramp. "Did you see that?" he asked.

"The uniform? Yeah. Standard SGC issue. She's one of us."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The alien woke up several days later in a quarantined section of the infirmary. A nurse had been checking her vitals and as soon as she saw the young girl's eyes open, she ran to get Frasier. As soon as Hammond heard, he called down SG-1 to have a talk with her, and who better than the eloquent and sensitive Daniel Jackson.

"Hey," he said, standing at the foot of the bed. "How are you feeling? Do you understand me?"

"I speak 22 languages, Daniel. Pick one," the alien said, looking down at her cast and groaning as she sat up. He helped her with the pillows and she gave him an appreciative smile.

"Wait, how'd you know my name?" he asked.

She looked up at him through thick eyelashes. He admired her sky-blue eyes, shining through the dim lighting of the room and her dark-colored hair like ocean beacons. When he noticed he was staring, he quickly looked away.

She still hadn't answered his question. "Well?" he asked again.

"You were there when I was born, Danny. I grew up in your little museum of an office. For 12 years, people couldn't sit across from me in the briefing room without smelling the old books."

"What do you mean? You're from-"

"The future," she interrupted him. "Yup. Mind-boggling, eh?"

He smiled nervously. "You mean I know your family? They work here?"

"Well, Dan, you know better than anyone that I can't tell you a thing without messing up the fabric of time. So I'd keep it to first date information."

"Must you be so dramatic?"

"Oh it's what I do best."

"But… are we… related?" he asked sheepishly, praying they weren't.

She shook her head from side to side and rested it back against the wall. She looked up at the observation deck of the quarantine room and saw they were not alone.

"You getting all this, Sam?"

Daniel looked up at Sam and Jack sitting side by side next to machines and monitors. "How can we trust you really are from where -- when you say you are?"

"Several ways but mostly, because I know things about you that you've never told anyone," she said, and then looked up at Sam and Jack. "Even things you've yet to admit to yourselves."

Sam went to look at Jack but he had already gotten up and walked through the door. She looked back down at the girl with worrisome eyes and for once, she felt someone understood what was really happening between them.

"What do we call you?" Daniel asked.

She sighed and thought about it but before she could answer, Jack walked in carrying the uniform she'd come in with in transparent plastic bags. He dropped it on her stomach, the label with her name on the breast pocket looking up at her menacingly.

"Care to explain something, Ms. _O'Neill_?" he asked, his tone dripping disdain.

A pause. No one dared speak as both O'Neills looked at each other with narrow eyes.

"That's _General_ O'Neill to you, sir," she finally broke the silence. Danny whipped his head to look at her. He couldn't understand how someone that looked 25 could possibly be of such rank.

Sam stood up on the observation deck. Jack refused to look away but his face began to drip into appreciation.

"You're my daughter," he whispered. Daniel looked up at the observation deck and for a moment, he was sure he saw a tear coming down Sam's face. When he looked back at the General, she was still caught in a deep glance with Jack. She seemed so apologetic.

But Jack couldn't help noticing her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes, even as they looked at him so. He recognized them from first glance in that Gate room, and he sighed. He looked down at the floor and sat beside her on the bed.

Daniel felt an uncomfortable silence coming on and decided it best to leave the room. He shot one last look up at Sam and said, "I'll just leave you two to talk."

Sam left as well, reluctantly. She had to talk to the stranger herself. She had to know. But she resisted and met up with Daniel as he left the quarantine room.

"You all right, Sam?" he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. She smiled weakly but refused to look up from the floor. Her eyes showed no signs of crying but something about the General had affected her.

"Briefing's in two hours. I've got to get some papers and gate diagnostics together. I'll see ya then," she said blankly, refusing to blink or look away from the floor.

Daniel saw her go and his worry went with her. He'd always known there was something between her and Jack but he'd never seen her so affected. He saw her turn the corner on the way to her office and his worry melted into sympathy and pity that followed her as his gaze dissipated. Then he made his way back to his office where he found his mind wandering from his book on the agricultural developments of Mesopotamia to the stranger that would be his best friend's daughter.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The briefing was about to begin but Colonel O'Neill had yet to arrive. Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Hammond, and Frasier all waited patiently but when they figured he wasn't going to make it, they began.

"Dr. Frasier, what have her tests concluded?" Hammond broke the silence.

She straightened up and opened her folders. "We've found several abnormalities in her blood work. This girl's got surgery scars all over, her senses seem extra-sensitive to outside stimuli, and I'm pretty damn sure she's got several organic prosthetic parts -- organ tissue, bone marrow, even skin that isn't natural. I'm waiting on some EKGs, ultrasounds, and on some work I requested from our on-call genetics team. This girl's a mess, sir. And scarily enough, she's in the most perfect health I've ever seen. Her leg's almost healed. Given a few days and she'll be good as new, despite the severe burning."

Sam listened carefully, her eyes widening as Janet spoke, her fear rising to the surface. Daniel was scared too. Teal'c seemed concerned as always.

"She's from the future," Sam said.

Hammond, Janet, and Teal'c all looked at her but she and Danny were caught in a trance, looking down at their hands as they played with the edges of a notepad or twirled a pen. She got to them and worry held them by a leash.

"Are you sure, Major?" Hammond asked.

"Positive. Her medical workup proves it. She didn't deny it."

"Well did she reveal anything about why she's here?"

Then they heard a voice coming from the stairs. "She wants asylum."

Colonel O'Neill came around the table, handed Hammond a folded piece of computer paper, and sat down beside Teal'c. His face was solemn, like he'd just learned far too much for such a simple mind.

"What is she running from? Will they come after her?" Danny asked, looking up from his notepad.

"She said a faction of her government went corrupt and turned on its own people. She's here to change the timeline so that it doesn't happen. She's got a mission, sir. I'm not sure what it is but there's a pretty big determining event coming up that she's here to stop. She's asked to be put to action as soon as possible. It involves the death of a crucial member of the SGC," Jack explained.

"And you think we're just going to let someone from the future run around changing history to her will?" Sam protested. Jack looked slightly shocked but he was just as blank as the rest.

"I trust her, sir. She left everyone she cared about behind. She's willing to help us with any technology or resources we might need… that we would have developed ourselves eventually. She's been privy to top-secret information and has been studying reports of past missions since she was a child, sir. Plus, she grew up around my old glory stories. She's willing to submit herself to any security measures you want to take but asks to be incorporated back into active duty," he told Hammond, ignoring everyone else in the room.

"Son, why was she willing to release all this information? Is there any chance she might be one of the agents that corrupted her government in the first place?" Hammond asked.

"She's my daughter, sir. She's telling the truth. Frasier can check it out."

There was a small moment of silence as they all awaited Hammond's response. "Colonel, you know that ultimately, there might not be anything I can if my superiors get hold of a time-traveling super-soldier. We may not be able to protect her from--"

"She'll only talk to me, sir. That's their collateral."

"There are ways of making her talk," Teal'c finally entered the conversation, his tone serious as usual.

Sam spoke this time, stopping Jack just as he opened his mouth to speak. "She won't. She'll be trained to withstand torture. The real question is: What's she really here to do and why her?"

Nobody dared speak. Jack felt her drift away even as they sat across from each other.

Hammond stood up and the others followed, "It's up to you 5 to figure it out. This doesn't leave us, understand? Keep me apprised of her condition and her test results. Colonel, I'm putting you in charge of her."

They all accepted and nodded along. Just as the General had turned around to go back and everyone was about to go on their way, he turned around and called out, "Colonel, what do we call her?"

"Adrienne, sir. Just Adrienne."

---------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWO:**

--Who is Adrienne's mother? o.O

--How far do her genetic enhancements take her?

--Who is she here to kill?

--What is Daniel planning to win her heart?

--Are Jack and Sam going to stop fighting and make up… or make out?

--Is the government going to take her away?

--Is Adrienne going to be the latest addition to SG-1?

--And what's going to happen when Jack's no longer around to protect her?

Tune in. It gets good. Ships galore! Snogging and someone gets caught with their hand in the Jell-O with a certain geek we all love. READ & REVIEW!


	2. Justified Conclusions

"**Level 28"**

_By "AriadneInLove"_

**DISCLAIMER:** This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

**SUMMARY**: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

**NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR**: First, I'd like to thank all of those who've reviewed my story. But oh are you wrong…

--What makes you think Adrienne even has a mother… let alone that it's Sam?

--Is Teal'c's distance from the storyline for a reason, maybe?

--Is she really here to kill someone or rescue someone?

--Who tried to kill her in the future?

--And most importantly… Why do you think she was the only one left alive in the future?

Thanks again for all the feedback. Made my day. Pass the story along. STARGATE FANS UNITE! lol.

And now…

**PART TWO: **_Justified Conclusions_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Three days later, Adrienne was released from the infirmary and given her own room at the SGC, though Sam was too in her world to know the particulars. Her burns and injuries had healed entirely and, aside from a slight limp that she assured them would go away by the next day, she was otherwise in eerily perfect health.

That night, Sam went over her reports in the mess hall. There were only scattered souls enjoying their Jell-O in peace and she had to organize some final research on their next mission, if they ever got to it. SG-1 had been taken off duty until the issue with Adrienne was resolved. Jack still refused to admit her to any other team but SG-1 and Hammond refused to let her in before more tests had been done and she had provided them with the information promised.

Bang! Someone jumped down onto the seat in front of her. She looked up, startled.

Adrienne.

"Hello," she said.

"What are you doing out of the infirmary?" Sam asked.

"Let's just say I got tired of waiting for you to visit."

Sam didn't respond. She closed the reports in front of her and leaned in.

"You don't trust me, do you?" Adrienne asked. "It's a justified conclusion, I'm sure. I'd be even less trusting were I in your position."

"'Justified conclusion'? You sure you're Colonel O'Neill's daughter?"

Adrienne's gentle face curled into a smile. She was so young, it was sickening. Sam thought maybe it was jealousy over her position but she felt better making herself belief that rather than admit the truth.

Sam asked, "You're not, are you?"

Adrienne refused to look away, leaning forward onto her arms on the table. "What makes you think I'm _anyone's_ daughter? He assumed. Who was I to contradict?"

Sam looked taken aback. She sat back on her chair and looked at her with tired eyes.

_I knew it_, she thought. _I knew there was a reason I couldn't trust her._

"We haven't been asking the right questions, have we? Will you tell them to _me_?"

"Oh I could never lie to you. See, you understand why I've kept silent. You know what my presence here can do. Who it can affect… What it can do to him if he should ever find out the truth."

Sam was curious again, jumping forward closer to her and whispering, "You don't want to hurt him, do you?"

Adrienne whispered back, "No, I could never… That's not a pertinent question, Sam."

"See I think it is. If you really were sent here rather than _came_ of your own accord, you'd get close to him to hurt him, not do the whole father-daughter charade. Why are you so eager to go off-world?"

"First, I'm not lying to him if that's what you mean. Frasier can check our DNA. What's his is mine. And did it ever occur to you that maybe I have no intention of going off-world? If I really did want to hurt you, this is where I could commit the most damage." She opened Sam's papers and pulled out her own medical history from Dr. Frasier. "You know I have the power to do it whenever I want. No man could stop me."

"Maybe it'd take an army, but I'll prove who and what you really are, Adrienne. You can count on it," Sam said, getting up from the seat, taking the papers from her hand and storming off for the door out of the mess hall.

But before she could step through, Adrienne, without so much as turning around, said, "I await the day with open arms, but I'd make sure you have his support before you go doing or saying anything crazy, Sam."

Sam slowly pushed the door open and stepped through.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Their talk had disturbed her. Sam thought of Adrienne's choice of words. _What's his is mine. _It sent shivers down her spine as she walked through the halls. She realized she hadn't talked to Colonel O'Neill in a few days. Was he avoiding her, she didn't know. But she was determined to find out. Even if it would hurt, she had to tell him that Adrienne was most possibly not his daughter.

Perhaps, she was no one's daughter.

Sam had a theory, as she always did, but she needed proof. So before she went to talk to Jack, she asked Hammond to call in the Tok'ra. Sel'mak had found discrepancies in DNA before. He could probably be able to tell these apart, no matter how many there were. Earth-Tok'ra relations had been dangerously weak lately but her father could not be blamed for wanting to see his daughter, right?

Hammond had authorized it and surely enough, two days later, they received a confirmation and the day after, Jacob walked proudly through the event horizon.

Sam, Hammond, Daniel, and Teal'c waited for him at the bottom of the ramp. Jack had apparently somewhere more important to be but surely Jacob would understand.

"Hey, Dad," Sam said, hugging her father gladly. He went on to greet the others with a manly handshake.

"I was told you wanted Sel'mak to check out a few things," he said.

"Yea, Dad, right this way."

Sam led him to her lab where they could speak in private. Papers were spread out over the working island in the middle of the room. Some were pinned on the walls or over the machine screens. Three laptops were running scans and Jacob was pretty sure by now that Sam was obsessed with finding an answer.

He went straight to a sequence of two DNA strands both labeled O'Neill that were taped to the wall. Just by looking at them, he ran straight to the laptops and before he even glanced at anything else, he asked, "What is she?"

Before they could turn to the door, Sam found a very ticked-off Jack leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

"You got something you want to tell me, Carter?" he asked, his tone a tempest over her heart.

She silently gulped as Jacob came up behind her and greeted Jack, minding the way the two were reacting.

But Sam could not help herself. "There's something going on with Adrienne, sir. She's not what she says she is. I brought in Sel'mak to help me go over her DNA scans," she said more sheepishly than she had hoped it would come out.

Jack blinked and looked at her expression. She refused to look at him, focusing on his boots. It struck him how much he had alienated her and decided to calm his thoughts. So he held his contemptuous tongue.

"Always a pleasure, Jacob," he said, avoiding Sam completely. "Major, Adrienne would like to speak with you. She's in the control room."

Sam raised both eyebrows. "In the control room?" she said staring at him. What a fool to trust her.

She ran past him to the control room where surely enough, Adrienne was sitting cross-legged in the chair usually occupied by Walter, wearing a standard issue black T-shirt and green fatigues. She had coffee in one hand and was looking at the screens expectantly, lying back in the chair.

Sam ran in and Jack calmly followed. Jacob remained enthused in Sam's obsession.

Sam turned to Jack who was just at the final step of the stairs and asked, "What the hell are you thinking! She can't be here all alone!"

He ignored her, his eyes tired. Adrienne spun in the seat and said, "If I wanted to do something, I would have done it already, Sam. Calm down and look."

Sam reluctantly moved into the seat next to her. "What am I looking at?" she asked.

Jack sat on Adrienne's other side. "Just wait," he said.

They waited for nearly 15 minutes, Sam impatiently tapping her fingernails on the console. Just as Sam was about to advise him of the complete pointlessness of their wait, the Gate began to turn on and the alarms began to flare. Walter came running in up the stairs and Adrienne quickly parted for him to sit.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" Walter yelled through the speakers.

"And you might want to call off the guns, honey," she whispered in his ear. Walter looked up at Colonel who nodded with a rather triumphant smile.

Walter asked for their evacuation just as Hammond came running in. "What the hell are you doing, Sergeant?" the General demanded to know.

Adrienne put a hand on the General's shoulder and nodded towards the Gate. Just a moment afterwards, several staff weapon blasts came through the Gate. A Goa'uld grenade weapon came through, counting down to explosion.

Adrienne smirked but Jack was getting worried. She moved away from them discretely. Only Sam noticed that she was heading down the stairs towards the Gate room. So she followed her quietly. Jack saw her leave now and realized who she was going after. He followed them. It seemed like a second had passed for everyone else. They didn't even have time to call in a bomb squad.

Adrienne was already at the sliding doors. It brought back memories. She took in a deep breath and realized she couldn't get in. Sam came up and took out her card, sliding open for her.

"Go for it, then," she said trustingly. They smiled at each other before Adrienne stepped through confidently. She walked up calmly to the bomb on the ramp and began to fiddle with it until it was open. She played with some buttons and the bomb stopped ticking. She held it up so those in the control room knew it was safe and the sirens shut off. Then she threw it back into the incoming wormhole so it could disintegrate in the event horizon and walked back down.

"Close the Iris! They're about to send the troops. It's Ba'al's little entourage," Adrienne yelled as she reached the door. It slid closed again behind her. Sam and Jack were still there, looking at each other as if they hadn't gotten together in years.

"Go for it, then," Adrienne said looking at the two with a smile. Sam smiled back at her in recognition of her own words. Adrienne patted Jack on the shoulder before going back to her room, leaving Sam and Jack alone for the first time in days just standing in the hallway.

It took them a few minutes before Sam or Jack said anything. It was just a harmony of apologetic smiles and sad, tired looks.

"You helped her," Jack was the first to speak. "I thought you didn't trust her."

"I don't, but you do. You haven't been wrong so far, no matter how blinded by fatherhood you might be, sir."

"Fatherhood… I know what you mean. I don't trust her completely, Carter, but I know she can help," he responded with a smile.

"What did she tell you about…"

"A bit. She still hasn't told me everything but I can tell she wants to."

"What are we going to do, sir?"

"'_We_?' So you know?"

"I figured she was ours. How'd _you_ know?"

He smiled. "The eyes. She has your eyes," he whispered, closing in on her against the hallway wall. She didn't pull away, no matter how inappropriate she knew it was. He'd stop himself… right?

"Let's get out of here. We've got to talk," she whispered and led the way up and out of Cheyenne Mountain.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel was dreading seeing her again. He knew he should let Jack get acquainted with his daughter before he could turn on the bespectacled charm. He hadn't stopped thinking about her for days and yet he couldn't bring himself to speak with her. After all, what could he talk to her about?

_Screw it_, he thought, jumping up from his seat before the momentary courage surging through him dissipated. But it was too late. Adrienne was already at his door.

"Hey Danny," she said with a smile, coming up innocently. "How ya been?"

Daniel felt the courage seep away with his sweat, and oh my, was he sweating.

She noticed his uneasiness and sat down on the chair in front of his computer. He went and sat in the chair across from her and they looked at each other. She'd sat back and crossed her legs, wearing the same usual uniform with her hair picked up in a bun. She had bangs that fell over her eyes, longer than usually seen. But she still looked quite pretty and innocent.

She was not as cynical and threatening as she had been when they first met. She actually seemed… glad to see him.

"I've been good. How's the leg?" he responded finally. She smiled.

"It's good as new."

"Good."

"You know what's funny? I've had the biggest crush on you since I was little girl."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. Where was she going with this? "So is this a reminder that you had a crush on me or a reminder that I was probably 50 when you were born?"

"You were dead when I born," she said, her smile gone.

"You had a crush on a dead guy?" he tried to turn the tension.

"No. I was in love with the idea of who you were. I'd never met you though you were there when I was born. I don't think you'd agree with me."

"How could I not agree with you? You were a baby. It takes a bit to piss me off."

"No, I mean you didn't agree with _how_ I was born."

"What?"

"Forget it."

"Right… Anyway, you seem pretty ok with the idea of time travel. Do it often?"

"Hmm. No, we have teams for that."

"But you _have_ done it before, right?"

"As have you."

A pause filled the room. "…touché," he said with narrowed eyes and a smile.

"So is this how they flirt in 2004?"

He laughed. "I wouldn't know. I haven't left in a while."

She tilted her head to one side and smiled. "Well I'm kind of grounded for a bit but what do you say we stop by the mess hall and grab a bite before solving the mysteries of the universe, eh?"

He smiled and nodded. He got up and put an arm out for her to take and he led her to the mess hall.

They grabbed some pie (it was today's special), Daniel some coffee and Adrienne settled herself down with some green Jell-O. Danny admired her as she ate. She was so much like Jack, even as she enjoyed her pie, especially from the Simpson's expression at the site of food.

"They have The Simpsons in the future?"

"Oh yeah, they're a classic. I inherited all the seasons. They're family heirlooms."

Daniel nearly spit out some coffee laughing. It was hard to imagine The Simpsons as classics. "Really?"

"Yup. They came with the silverware -- pardon, plastic-ware."

"So… what are you going to do? Are you going back?"

She stopped concentrating on her Jell-O and pie and looked up at him through thick eyelashes. "Nowhere to go. I'm the last."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

They met up at a park near his house. It was nearest. They walked quite a bit before either one of them spoke. It was a bit uncomfortable talking to each other so informally. Sam still refused to let go of the "sir".

"What are we going to do, sir?" she asked as they neared a park bench.

"Well I was thinking of buying a dog but I'm worried he'll eat my furniture. What do you think?" he avoided the subject.

"Don't be an asshole, sir. What are we going to do about Adrienne?" she ignored his smiling gaze, bringing up her legs to hug her knees. They'd both changed into jeans and civilian clothes.

"Well you can have her every other week. But don't expect me to take her to soccer practices and all that."

"Every other week? Sir, I'm being serious. Please don't mock it."

"Hmm. Yes, she seems more into football. Think she'll like curling? I've got to take her fishing one of these days. Maybe you'll finally join us."

"Jack, cut the crap!" she yelled but it only made him smile more. He finally raised his hands in a sign of surrender. She'd said his name. No more "sirs" or "Colonels" or confusing psychobabble. He'd gotten her right where he wanted her.

"You know we can't just ignore it anymore. We can't hide it or keep it to ourselves. They're going to figure out you're her mother pretty soon. Hammond's probably already figured it out. Frasier I'm sure knows. Daniel's in denial and for some reason hasn't looked me straight in the eye for a few days and Teal'c is Fort Knox. Even if he knew, he wouldn't say a thing," Jack explained, watching her stare off at the lush green grass.

She still didn't respond.

_They all know_, she thought. And the thought alone was digging into her soul.

She put down her knees and sniffed. He drew her in so that she rested her head upon her shoulder. It made her think of the last time she was like this with him. She thought she was about to die, and before that, she had no idea who she was. But it felt so natural to be in his arms, how they wrapped around her so seamlessly.

"Is she going to join SG-1?" she asked somewhat muffled through his shirt.

He laughed a bit. She seemed so young and innocent in that very moment. "I don't know. I'm not even sure I want to."

"Think she'll interfere, or do you think she can't be trusted off-world?"

"I have no idea. Fatherly worry, I suppose."

Her stomach seemed to collapse with that idea. It was not the idea of sex with this man but that his heart would just collapse if he knew what she thought Adrienne really was. She couldn't handle seeing him hurt again. Even the mention of Charlie brought his usual wit and charm and tore him up to shreds.

That's when she began to believe. What if she could make him happy again? What if she could make all that pain go away, even if it was just for a little while? So, she kept her mouth shut about her theories and notions.

"We'll work it out, Jack. She tell you anything about what miracle is going to happen that allows us to… make this happen, without getting canned, that is?"

"Nope, sorry but right now it's just us. I don't even know when."

"Let's figure that out first, eh? It might come in handy."

"She doesn't want to interfere with what would happen naturally."

"Hmm. I don't buy it. I'll talk with her."

"Mother-daughter talk?" he said. It hadn't entirely hit her that she might be her mother. Let alone of a genetically enhanced super-girl.

They talked a bit more, of what to do about her and what she might be here to do. They could guess but they could not plan for what was coming. It might be years before anything might happen. They had time, they told themselves. What a lie.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART THREE:**

**--**Will the Daniel/Adrienne back-story begin to develop?

--How far are Jack and Sam going to go before they get caught?

--What the hell's going to happen with Teal'c?

--Does Sam already know what Adrienne is?

--Is she going to tell Jack, or keep abusing her knowledge to get some nookie?

--Is Adrienne going to finally join SG-1?

--What killed everyone in the future?

--Who will betray them all?

Keep tuned in! It just gets funnier and more ridiculous from now on. Stories develop between characters. We finally see Adrienne relate with the entire team trustingly. The snogging begins! Someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… READ & REVIEW!


	3. Essentially a Mother

"**Level 28"**

_By "AriadneInLove"_

**DISCLAIMER:** This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

**SUMMARY**: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

**NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR**: First, I'd like to thank all of those who've reviewed my story. But oh are you wrong…

--Who says Adrienne even _likes_ Daniel yet?

--What "powers" have her genetic alterations brought forth onto humanity?

--Who created her?

--When is she finally going to go off-world?

--Where's Teal'c?

--And most importantly… What or who did she leave behind?

Thanks again for all the feedback. Made my day. Pass the story along. STARGATE FANS UNITE! lol.

And now…

**PART THREE: **_Essentially a Mother_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack got home around 9:00pm that night, which was after all, relatively early. He'd, however, stopped at a bar (something he hadn't done in years) and had himself enough margaritas, vodka, and beers to take down a yeti.

When he arrived at the SGC the next morning, he had to wear sunglasses inside to hide the bruising under his eyes, not that he was very happy with indoor lighting at this moment.

He sat down in the mess hall across from Teal'c, refusing to even look at food, despite his inane hunger.

"Whoever invented alcohol should be shot," he said, banging his head on the table.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."

"What am I doing to myself, Teal'c? No matter how much I try, I can't get her out of my head."

"Adrienne O'Neill?"

"No… Sam…. Carter… whatever."

"Have you reason to worry about her? Is Major Carter in danger?"

"No, it's not that. It's…"

"Ah, you refer to your romantic aspirations towards her."

"Hmm," Jack muffled, his head still pressed against the table.

_This can't be sanitary_, he thought.

"What has brought on your sudden realization of your feelings towards her?"

"Adrienne. She's… she's our daughter," Jack whispered.

The Jaffa did not look happy, but did he ever? "I see. Are you taking her presence as a leave from your military regulations?"

"I wish I could, T, but I can't let myself go there. Anubis is getting more powerful. Giving in now could compromise the SGC if either one of us couldn't be here. Plus, the NID is just _dying_ to have something on us," he explained, his eyes painfully shut behind his sunglasses.

"Then perhaps it is a matter of priority, O'Neill. Could you not simply wait until the approaching time when it is appropriate for you to do so as per Adrienne's birth?"

"You mean Adrienne wouldn't be here unless there would come a time when it'd be ok for us to be together."

"Precisely."

"I've been waiting 7 years, T. I don't think I can wait any more, not if I know we're going to end up together anyway."

"Then perhaps your instincts are correct. I cannot advise you further, O'Neill."

Jack lifted his head from the table and nodded. "Yeah there's not much more I can do."

"No, I cannot because Major Carter approaches."

Jacks eyes opened wide. He looked back and surely enough, Sam had just walked in. She saw them and sat down beside him, hardly looking up from her papers and coffee.

"Do you live off that stuff?" Jack asked before she could greet them with her usual smile.

"It comes with the job description, sir," she responded in a very distant tone. Jack leaned in and saw she was going over Adrienne's papers again. She noticed and leaned away, looking at his sunglasses with a raised eyebrow.

"Late night?" she asked. He only answered with a muffled groan.

Teal'c, however, responded, "Indeed."

She shot a look at Teal'c and another at Jack who seemed to return to his place with his forehead on the table. She had her confused-but-worried look on and it was unsettling to Teal'c, who felt like a third wheel.

"I shall leave you two to converse in private," he said, getting up from his chair and bowing slightly as he always did. Sam smiled as he left and Jack just groaned what Teal'c took as a "See ya, buddy."

"Well you look like crap," she said after a short pause, still refusing to look away from her papers for a single moment. Jack had gotten used to this and just kept talking, knowing she was listening.

"Guess what. I feel like it too. I hit Barkley's after we met."

"Barkley's? Are you kidding me? Now I've driven you to drink. What a great future I see _us_ having."

Jack lifted his head at this. He took off his sunglasses, shaking off the sensitivity to the even dim light of the mess hall and looked at her.

"A future, huh. So you do see us together someday."

"Well if you need any more proof, check out our care package in the VIP room."

Jack laughed. "Was that a sign of sarcasm and wit in your voice?"

"I get it from you."

He laughed again and returned his head to the table. "Whatever you say, dear."

She smiled at this, knowing he couldn't see her. It felt like just one big joke, like it could never happen no matter how deeply she wished it did.

That's when she reached the report from the genetics team Hammond had called in. "Colonel, you have to see this," she said, her hand shaking.

He reluctantly lifted his head and took the paper. "What am I looking at, Carter?"

"Her DNA results, sir. It says there's no way I can be her mother."

"What? Why?"

"Because her DNA not only matched yours, it's nearly an identical match. She's a clone, sir."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel and Adrienne had spent the evening talking in the mess hall. Adrienne had gone through several cups of Jell-O and two full pies. He enjoyed watching her eat. It was impulsive but she didn't eat desperately or like a pig. She has such grace to her every movement, the way she played with her spoon.

_What I wouldn't give to be that spoon_, Daniel thought and smiled inwardly.

They talked of Daniel's childhood and his parents. She said she understood growing up without them but he tried not to ask further questions about that.

Then they talked about the base and laughed over how little had changed.

"…They still have pie every Tuesday. It's homage to Jack, I always thought. Most of the teams are still military-based but the funding all goes to research now and less on development. I don't know how many people have screwed up the economy but I blame the president and we had so many cutbacks last year thanks to the NID that most of the projects got circumvented elsewhere. It was our major problem. We have alpha sites and beta sites and all the way to omega but that one's so far away that it's a last resort. We couldn't reach it by ship in time to save anyone so people mostly use it to make out on weekends and to go fishing in-between seeing as it actually has fish, three heads or less. We consider it our parked car by the lake -- only worldwide…"

Daniel had become interested on this omega site. "Kissing you say?"

"Oh among other things. Several a new base personnel were conceived right on that planet. My second in command, Rogers, was born right on the shore. His mother wanted an underwater birth but didn't notice the piranha-like inhabitants of the water and now he has tiny teeth marks all other and a chunk of his foot missing like someone grabbed him and bit him."

Daniel couldn't help but laugh and she laughed right along with him. She had an infectious laugh, when she wasn't heavily armed.

"Want to get out of here, Dr.?" she said brazenly, a huge smirk on her face.

"Lead the way?"

She took his hand as they walked through the halls smiling the whole way. He knew he had to be careful but he felt like a giddy schoolboy around her. So he gave in to temptation.

"I wonder if it's still here. There was a bunker head like a closet somewhere around here," she said.

"A closet?"

"All the rooms have cameras and Jack would kill me if I left the base."

So he didn't complain further. It might not be romantic but she was forward and it saved a lot of messy conversations.

She finally reached it and climbed the stairs up into the bunker. He followed suite, wondering how she could move around the base so easily, so mindlessly. After nearly 8 years, he still got lost from time to time.

"I grew up around here, Danny. I know every curve and nick in this place and even the ones that have yet to be made," she responded to his thoughts.

It struck him as strange and asked, "How did you-"

"One of my many talents, love," she said. "Minds are far too easy."

"You can read minds?" he asked, stopping dumbstruck in place, not so much about the confirmation but of what she had heard or seen coming from his.

"Don't worry, Danny. I can't see into the mind. I can only sense feelings. Your secrets are safe."

He chuckled nervously and followed her cautiously. She reached a door that opened to a ladder that led into a bunker with a very large fan. But essentially, it was a large room.

"Are we in the ventilation system?" he asked.

"Yeah, so nobody can hear us."

"Listen, Adrienne, I don't know what it is you expect from me but I'm-"

"Oh you know exactly what I expect… but don't worry. I just want to talk."

He sat down against one metallic wall across from her. The roof was not very high and they could not stand fully so they just laid back against the walls, the fan in-between them.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked. She had begun to crawl towards him across the room. The fan blew her hair loose and her eyes began to shine deep blue as she approached him. It looked like blue smoke emanated from her, completely untouched by the fan's current.

"Well I lied somewhat," she said, pretending to slip on the metallic floor and falling on top of his chest. His legs had completely outstretched in front of him and he was extremely sure he was drooling.

He usually didn't go for this but it was hard to turn something one wants away.

Just as she leaned in to kiss him, she pulls out a knife from her boot and brings it to his neck.

Her devious, playful smile was gone. Anger seemed to flow through her.

"Hey, whoa, I'm sorry but I'm not into all this," he said, trying to avoid the blade at his neck.

"Tell me where to find Dionysus," she growled angrily.

"What are you talking about?" he responded firmly.

"Only you would know where it is. Tell me where I can find Dionysus."

"Dionysus? The only Dionysus I know is in Greek Mythology…"

"Yes, he married Ariadne after she was abandoned by Theseus. I need to find him."

"Is he a Goa'uld?" he asked quietly as she closed the knife closer to dampening skin. At his question, she backed off a bit.

"You don't know what it is, do you?" she whispered, kneeling beside his legs, the knife at her side. "I've come too far back."

As Daniel saw her face turn to solemn, he placed a hand on her shoulder. "You didn't have to resort to this, Adrienne. I would have told you."

"No you wouldn't have. I don't know you Daniel. I don't trust people easily. I had to get you in a… compromising position to read you."

"So the mind thing only works when I'm freaking out?" She smiled a bit, something he heard like a laugh. "Tell ya what. I'll help you find whatever it is. Just please," he said, taking the knife carefully from her reluctant hand. "No more slice-and-dice."

She let him take the knife and threw it aside. She was still dangerously close. He could smell her perfume and felt slightly faint by it. It was a delicate scent but strong.

"What do you say we go back to my office and look up this Dionysus, eh?"

"Hmm. I don't know. We're here, now, alone… Some might take advantage of the situation."

"Well you know how I feel about that," he said more squeakily than he wished.

She smiled and leaned in slowly, kissing him gently on the lips and moving away just as cautiously. She knew he wasn't the type to jump on her first chance he got.

But she was wrong. She began to move away when he grabbed her arm and pulled her back in with a smile, brushing her hair back with his hand where the fan blew it asunder.

When she backed away, he noticed a tear down her face. "You're not him," she whispered. "You're not him." And she crawled back to the ladder entrance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne could not be found the hours after Sam's realization. Jack and Sam split up and tried to find her, talk to her before going to Hammond, but she wasn't in her room and she wasn't anywhere near the infirmary. Where else could she go?

Jack took the lead and searched all the rooms, the control center, and asked around if anyone had seen her in the labs. He reached Daniel's office and figured he'd ask him for help. But there she was, fallen asleep with her head in her arms, hidden behind piles of books. She'd been researching, but for what?

He didn't know whether or not to wake her but he had his gun drawn and was aiming it straight at her head. That's when he heard someone clearing their throat behind him. Daniel was at the door holding two cups of coffee and a newspaper, looking at him blankly.

"What's going on here?" Daniel asked, with eyebrows raised.

Adrienne woke up at the sound of his voice and looked up at the gun near her head.

"Yeah, just what I was about to ask," she said, her face more worried, innocent even.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jack yelled, refusing to lower the gun.

"What are you talking about?" Daniel asked, taking a step inside. "Jack, just lower the gun and we'll work this out, ok?"

"She's not what she says she is, Daniel. She's a clone."

Adrienne began to laugh out loud. Jack slowly lowered his gun, his instinct telling him otherwise.

"So, is that all you're worried about?" she asked, her laugh slowly dissipating.

"Is it true?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah, it's true. But not in the way you think. You're right, I was made from your DNA but I'm not your clone. Nor am I Sam's. After all, she was the one that made me."

Jack felt fear running through him but his face showed only hurt. "You're not my daughter."

"You died before I was born, Jack. I was part of a project led my Colonel Samantha Carter to create a quicker method of reproduction, codenamed Ariadne. It was funded by the Asgard. I was going to be the first genetically viable clone. An offspring for a civilization of reproductively-challenged clones. They were the ones that insisted we use your DNA," she explained as if it were merely a tale to entertain little children, a run-of-the-mill little story.

Daniel's mouth was slightly open in shock. "What did you mean I didn't approve of how you were born?" he asked, moving closer behind Jack. What time they had spent together felt like a lie.

"The offspring required human incubators. When the project was shut down prematurely, a rogue group kidnapped Colonel Carter and forced her to finish The First. They used her as an incubator, no matter how reluctantly, making her _essentially_ my mother. But my birth nearly killed her. You said you could never condone the birth of one for the death of another, but while trying to rescue her, you were killed by rogue mercenaries. She raised me right her at the base until it got taken over and then a month before I left, the enemy faction took her prisoner," she continued.

"Is this faction the betrayers you were talking about?" Jack asked.

"No, they were just pawns."

"Who then?" Daniel demanded, putting down the coffees before they burned the Styrofoam cups and onto his hands.

Her lips curled into a smile and a shrug surely followed. She couldn't tell them but they knew that's why she was here: to stop them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART FOUR:**

**--**How will Sam respond to the news of Adrienne's nature? Did she know already?

--How far are Jack and Sam going to go?

--What the hell's going to happen with Teal'c?

--Is Adrienne going to finally join SG-1?

--Will Sel'mak have any answers? Permanent solutions?

--What killed everyone in the future?

--Who will betray them all?

--Will Daniel still feel the same way about Adrienne or will it get deeper?

--And finally… What _is_ Dionysus?

Keep tuned in! It gets a little scary for a while and then someone dies. Stories develop between characters. We finally understand the natural abomination that is "Adrienne O'Neill." The snogging begins! Someone retires, someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… READ & REVIEW!


	4. No One's Daughter

"**Level 28"**

_By "AriadneInLove"_

**DISCLAIMER:** This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

**SUMMARY**: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

And now…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART FOUR: **_No One's Daughter _

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Silence followed her down the hallways of Cheyenne. She felt like the personnel's eyes followed her as she walked, her papers eternally attached to her hands. She felt the world's eyes upon her and needed to escape. She moved quickly towards her office but then she heard the call over the speakers, beckoning her to her next perilous instant.

_Major Carter, please report to Isolation Room 1._

She sighed and moved in the opposite direction from her office. When she reached the Iso Room, Jacob was already there beside Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c on the observation deck.

"What's going on?" she asked, still haven't looked down into the room below. Daniel's face was solemn as if he knew what they were doing was wrong but could do nothing to stop it. Jack's that hidden, stern angst he used to keep his emotions from surfacing and Teal'c was his usual neutral self.

Jacob's apologetic eyes moved down to the room. And then she saw it.

Adrienne was tied down on a bed, struggling madly to escape. Doctors and technicians were circling her all over the room with masks and hazmat suits.

One was bringing a large needle near her and stuck her in the neck. The needle broke, unable to penetrate.

"Note the voluntary thickness of her epidermal layer. Sedation is impossible at this point. We'll continue nonetheless," the doctor with the needle noted aloud.

They brought a scalpel and began to see if they could break through the skin on her palm. Adrienne looked up at the observation deck as Sam dropped all her papers on the floor and raised a hand to the glass. Her heart dropped a beat and she could not help the welling tears.

"What are they doing to her?" she asked or rather demanded of the men.

"They're experimenting," Jack said with a deadly tone, his arms crossed and eyes fixed.

"Colonel, that's your daughter!"

"No, she's not. She's no one's daughter."

"Jack, she's a part of you! You can't deny that. She's a part of me too and I'm not standing by while they do this to her," she said firmly, turning on her heal and running out the entrance and down into the room, Daniel running after her. Jack shuddered, forcing himself not to move.

Jacob turned to him and said, "That's my granddaughter in there, Jack. Think about what you're doing."

They watched as Sam and Daniel broke in below and, Sam pointing a gun at several scientists, they pulled her out of her restraints.

"Sam, don't do this," Adrienne warned, no matter how happy she was to see them.

"What are talking about?" Daniel asked, freeing her bleeding hand. She shot a smile at him and began to free her other hand as he freed her bare ankles.

The doctors and nurses stepped aside but Dr. Faraday refused to back away from the single greatest scientific discovery since the Stargate.

"It must be studied, Major. It could hold the key to countless medical breakthroughs, save millions of lives…"

"The '_It'_ you're talking about is my daughter, Dr. Faraday, and I'm not letting you use her as a guinea pig to further your career."

"Major!" she heard General Hammond yell from the other side of the room. "What's going on here?"

"They were killing her!" she responded. "We had to do something!"

"Killing her? We would never go that far," Dr. Faraday defended himself.

"But you condone torture?" Daniel asked, having finally freed her and holding her in his arms.

Dr. Faraday did not respond. He looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Major Carter, please lower your weapon. This issue can be resolved diplomatically," Teal'c said, coming into the room with Jacob behind him.

"We didn't know she couldn't be sedated, Sam. I swear," Jacob said.

"He's right Sam. Put down the gun," Daniel chipped in, still holding Adrienne's head against his chest.

"You mean you were going to experiment on this girl without any sedation _and_ without her consent?" Hammond began to scold the scientists. "Airmen, get his ass over to the cells, pending immediate dismissal and criminal charges."

Two airmen with very large guns came and took the doctor away, shock still written over his face.

Sam threw the gun across the room and went to Adrienne who looked at her as if saying, "What have you done?"

Sam was confused. She'd saved her despite her original misgivings. She'd been a good mother… well, incubator. Why wasn't Adrienne grateful?

But just as Sam was about to turn around, Adrienne said, "Thank you, but you didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did."

"I can handle myself," she said sternly.

"Is that what this was about? I know you control that little layer of protection you've got. Why didn't you let them sedate you?"

"Because they'd find out what I am."

"I already know what you are."

"No, you know nothing."

"So you're preserving the future and yet you're here to screw it up anyway?"

"Nice little conundrum, eh?" Adrienne said, her father's sarcasm escaping to the surface. It made Sam smile.

After everyone had left the room, Adrienne and Daniel followed. Sam took one last look around. There was a puddle of blood where Adrienne's hand had bled. It closed up while she was in Daniel's arms.

She turned towards the door with a clipboard in hand, ready to leave this day behind, when she saw Jack walking in. His face was still stern and determined, emotionless. He looked straight at her tired eyes.

"What the hell were you _thinking_?" Sam said through gritted teeth, throwing the clipboard onto the bed in the middle of the large room. He winced but she didn't care. He knew what he was doing was wrong.

She continued, "I get that you're angry but she's still _you_. I'm still her mother and she's still your daughter so pretending you didn't care that she was in pain-"

"You're right," he interrupted.

She froze at his words. "What?"

"I'm so sorry, Sam," he said sincerely. "I didn't know Faraday was going to do that and I'm sorry for not putting a stop to it as soon as he went too far. I'm sorry I was angry, but know it wasn't at _her_. I know I took it out on her and I promise I'll make up for it but have to understand. She's yours and she's mine but she's not _ours_."

He'd walked slowly towards her, a hand on either one of her shoulders.

"What?" she whispered looking up at him with teary eyes.

"She's not ours. What love I had -- have for her came from knowing she was our child, of our marriage… of us."

She was in reluctant tears, a blend of sadness and anger. "You don't abandon a child, Colonel. Doesn't matter whose it is."

"She's not a child! She's a General for crying out loud! She can take care of herself."

"That doesn't mean we're the ones that push her off the cliff," she said and pulled away, storming out of the room and leaving him to his mistakes… and his guilt.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel took Adrienne to the infirmary as soon as he got her out of that room. Her hands were still shaking, her mind still reliving the phantom pain of the scalpel, even after the wounds had sealed. Her wrists and ankles ached but the abrasions had healed as well.

"Janet can look this over for you," he said holding her shivering, cold hand as he helped her onto the hospital bed. He was about to leave but she firmed her grip.

"Don't go," she whispered. He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her.

"I'm sorry, Ree. I should have stopped it sooner."

"It's not the first time it's happened. You believed it would better mankind what they could learn from me," she said. "I'm used to it."

"No one should be accustomed to being used."

"And yet I am, no?" she smiled weakly, slightly avoiding his gaze. "Sometimes, there's no point in changing the past. Things happen everywhere."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. Her words' meanings dug into him and his curiosity spiked but just as he opened his mouth to speak, the sirens began to sound again.

"It's Ba'al again. He's kidnapping a few SG-teams as we speak and plans on infiltrating them with a Goa'uld and setting up bombs all over the SGC… blah blah blah… the usual," she joked.

Daniel didn't find it so amusing. "Do you know who he's infiltrated yet?"

"Well I can't tell whether they have yet but I'll help any way I can."

"Why are you so willing to help us save Earth, almost eager to share all that you know, but you won't tell us about yourself?" he asked calmly, his hand still atop hers on the bed sheets.

"The future I plan for you, for all of you, does not include me. If I save you, I will never be made. I will never be born. I will only live to see you saved and I will be off in peace. Maybe I'll find myself a nice cabin by a lake and spend the rest of my sickeningly long life in peace." She seemed almost suicidal. Daniel thought she was more like her father than she really knew.

"I'll go get Frasier and then I'll be right back, ok?" he asked sweetly with a smile. She smiled back and nodded and they parted hands.

She lied back on the bed and rested on her side, her head upon the back of her hand on the pillow. She hadn't closed her eyes in days but she was so tired, so at peace, that she felt her eyelids heavy themselves down to sleep.

A bit later, she felt someone the sheets up to her shoulders and she smiled to herself. She knew who it was.

"I'm awake, Teal'c. What is it you require?" she asked calmly, turning to sit up on the bed.

She saw him walk over to the bed beside hers and sit on the edge. He was dreading asking her.

"Ask away, T. I know what you're going to ask anyway."

"Then perhaps I do not need me to ask."

"No, but you need to ask to get over this. You'll come to me often for advice as I'll go to you. It's always been like that; since I was born I've come to you."

"I see. Then I must ask: what of my family in the future?"

She smiled. "Bra'tac lived a hell of a long time, which he used to teach an entire battalion of Rebel Jaffa. He helped me greatly during the First Wave. Rya'c is a fine warrior. I've fought beside him once or twice. His daughters lead many armies of Amazons and his son is a leader among Jaffa. Your legacy carries well. Your wife joined the Jaffa rebellion after you died in battle. She was always a great leader. It took the elders a bit to get used to her but she was a great ally for the Tau'ri after the…"

His eyes welled up and his mouth turned into as much a smile as Teal'c could give. "Might I ask… what I called you in the future?"

She smiled back at him with her great blue eyes and said, "Ree. You were the first to call me Ree."

"And of this wife…"

"Don't even go there, T. You're going to have to find her all on your own."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam reluctantly went home that night, ordered by Hammond. Actually, he ordered her to take some time off but she practically laughed in his face. So instead, she got in her car and began to drive on the way home before she noticed that just 10 miles off her usual path home sat Barkley's Bar and Grill, even though it was more bar than grill.

As she walked in, she noticed that the place was actually pretty nice. There were fishing and game trophies in glass cases all around the back wall and animal heads mounted everywhere, which she thought was grotesque but just like Jack's usual outdoorsy style. It seemed like, more than anything, a gentleman's club… without the strippers but she wondered if they'd be coming out from under the tables later.

She sat down at the bar and asked the rather cute bartender, "Get me something that'll make me forget all about today, kid."

"Tough day, huh? Want to tell me about it?"

"Well I would but then, I'd have to kill you," she said with a smile and took the blue drink which she chugged down ungracefully.

After her fifth shot and a few little umbrella drinks, she decided she was shnoggered enough and decided to call a cab. Before it arrived, she'd beat 3 of the guys at pool, despite seeing 2 of everything.

Merry in her conquest, she fell asleep on her couch. Two hours later, around 3AM, she felt a light knock on the door as if whoever was there did not want to wake her but did not want to leave. She staggered out of the couch, bumping into several pieces of furniture and opened the door wide, holding onto the frame of the door as her feet wanted to give.

"Daniel?" she asked, the figure in the dark already turned to leave.

He swung around and quickly took his hands out of his pockets to catch her before she fell forward. "Whoa! Where have _you_ been all night?"

She groaned but didn't answer. Daniel took her back inside where he put her to bed and fixed himself a shot of whatever was in her liquor cabinet before she woke up.

7:00AM: The alarm clock rang beside her head. The sound made her wince and the light through the window made her head spin.

She shut off the alarm and made her way to the kitchen for some aspirin. Surely enough there was Daniel, asleep on a chair with his head on the table and a glass of wine in his outstretched hand. Her eyes went wide and she looked back to her crumpled sheets.

_Oh dear God what have I done?_ she thought.

She hurried over to the cabinets in search of the aspirin, desperate to remember… or forget. The banging of the doors woke him.

"Sam?" he asked. "What time is it?"

"7:00. Feel like filling me in on what you're doing here?" she asked, finally grabbing the bottle and chugging two pills down dryly. She winced at the texture in the back of her throat.

"I came to talk to you about Adrienne but you were knocked off your ass last night. What were you thinking?"

"Just talk? Oh thank God. For a second I thought…" she interrupted herself and looked away.

Daniel shifted in his chair and cleared his throat.

"What happened with Adrienne?" she tried to avoid any other subject.

"Oh a hell of a lot, actually. Did you know she can read minds? Well not minds, feelings?"

"What?"

"Oh yeah, I found out after she took me to her little nook and tried to… kiss me."

Sam raised an eyebrow and smiled. "You poor man?"

"She thinks I'm someone else, Sam. Someone from her future. And what sickens me most is that I wish I were him if it meant having her."

A short silence followed. "I'll talk to her. Give me a ride back to the base?"

"Sure but you might want to take the little umbrellas out of your hair before you talk to Hammond, too."

"Hmm. True. I'm going to go take a quick shower. Make yourself at home," she said and left for her bedroom, hitting a few nightstands on the way to the shower.

Daniel went to the couch and grabbed himself the remote control, flipping through until he found the history channel. There was something about Ancient Egypt and Ra and he decided to watch for laughs. He felt marvelous knowing more than the supposed TV experts.

Just as he was going into a cackle as the section on the practical uses of a sarcophagus popped up, the doorbell rang and he shut it off to go open it reluctantly.

"One minute!" he yelled as he got up from the couch. As soon as he opened the door, he felt taken aback. "Jack?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you the same," he said. "Where's Sam?"

"She's in the shower. Come on in," Daniel responded as if nothing.

Jack raised an eyebrow, ready to decline but Daniel was already inside the kitchen and he was just standing in the doorway. So he went in and closed the door behind him, cautiously moving through the hall on the way to the kitchen. He sat down on the stool as Daniel poured them a drink. He noticed the shot glasses already out.

"So what brings you by, Jack?" Daniel asked with a friendly smile. Jack looked up from his glass.

"This was a mistake," he said. But as he got up and turned towards the door, Sam was already out in a white bathrobe.

He stopped nearly bumping into her, their faces in shared shock.

"Colonel?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered and looked away, heading again towards the door.

She didn't stop him for she felt her feet had melted to the floor at the first sight of him, there, in her very kitchen. She looked at Daniel and for a second, he thought he saw a tear but it must have been his imagination. Major Carter did not cry unless provoked.

"You feel like telling me what that was all about?" he asked.

"It's a story too long and too old to tell," she said and walked back to her room to get changed for another day of turmoil.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART FIVE:**

**--**Why didn't Daniel tell Sam about Dionysus?

--What did Jack want to tell her?

--What does he think happened between Danny and Sam?

--Who's Teal'c going to marry?

--Why is Janet so detached? What of her feelings for Daniel?

--When will Jack and Sam finally begin this secret relationship you're all dying to read about?

--And finally… What can kill an immortal that fears no pain?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep tuned in! It gets a little scary for a while and then someone dies. Stories develop between characters. We finally understand the natural abomination that is "Adrienne O'Neill." The snogging begins! Someone retires, someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… READ & REVIEW!


	5. Now or Never

"**Level 28"**

_By "AriadneInLove"_

**DISCLAIMER:** This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

**SUMMARY**: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

And now…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART FIVE: **_Now or Never _

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel went to see Adrienne in the infirmary the following day. He hadn't slept since he completely collapsed at Sam's house and he was pretty sure he was never going to sleep again after what he saw in her bed.

Nothing.

"Where's Adrienne?" he asked a day nurse on her way out.

"Who?" she asked back.

"The girl that was in _that_ bed last night. Where did they take her?"

The nurse shrugged and kept on walking. He swore under his breath and went to find Sam or Jack or anyone able and willing to find her. When he finally reached Sam's lab, the Major was already hard at work on her next experiment… alone.

"Have you seen Adrienne?" he asked but worry only rose to her eyes. "She's not in the infirmary."

"Have you checked with Colonel O'Neill or Teal'c?"

"No. I'm worried, Sam."

Sam nodded as if saying "ditto" and picked up a small rock from her desk before running after him to find Jack.

He was either in the mess hall or the control room talking with Hammond so Daniel and Sam split up.

On the way there, Daniel felt the sirens begin to sound once more. In the other side, Sam heard it as well. They both ran to the control room but Daniel was mere seconds away.

The technicians had all been knocked out, Walter's hand fallen atop the emergency button before collapse. Daniel ran to the boards and opened the blast doors. Adrienne was in the process of beating up an armed airman and had just hit him straight in the face with the butt end of a P-90. He went tumbling down among the others.

Daniel ran down the stairs to Level 28 and ran in through the wide open door.

"Adrienne!" he yelled. "Stop!"

She already had a foot on the ramp but she stopped mid-step and turned around at the sound of his voice.

"You caught me," she said wryly. "What are you doing, Danny? Just let me go."

"No, if you go now, I'm never going to see you again, am I?"

"Danny, the thing in the vents didn't mean anything. I-"

"It's not that! Think about Jack and Sam. And don't even think we can just let you run around changing history of your own free will… Please, Ree," he said coming towards her slowly, his hand on her arm. "You can read me, right? You know you can't go alone. No matter how much you know, you can't expect to survive out there."

She looked at him with teary eyes and whispered hoarsely, "I can't stay. I stayed too long as it is. I've come too far back, Danny. I have to stop them before they reach you."

He didn't bother asking who "they" were. "At least tell me where you're going," he pleaded with concern in his eyes.

She looked at the open Gate and said, "Dionysus awaits," and a smile lit up her face. "Come with me!"

He let go of her arm and she ran to the event horizon.

"Now or never, Danny."

He looked back at the control center. Sam was already there trying to track the Gate address. He saw Jack come up behind her and she ran down the stairs as quickly as she could.

"There's 39 seconds left before the Gate shuts down. I'll wait for you on the other side," she said and stepped through.

Just as he was about to go after her, Sam opened the door to the Gate room and ran after him.

"Here! Take this and I'll find you!" she yelled, throwing the rock from her lab in his direction. He caught it just in time to run in; the Gate shut down just as he disappeared into the shimmering horizon.

"Watch her for me, Daniel," Sam whispered to herself after watching her friend and her daughter step through the Gate to who-knows-where.

Jack came running down behind her. Sam felt weak. It could have been the booze. It could have been the stress. It could have been the fear of losing them. But she felt her legs weaken under her and she collapsed on the ramp.

Jack ran up to catch her but she was already on the ground.

"Sam! Sam, wake up!" he yelled but she her eyes refused to open. He cradled her in his arms before lifting her up and running her over to the infirmary.

"Set her down on the bed," Janet said calmly, but before he could see her wake up, a nurse led him outside.

He spent an hour pacing outside. He wasn't the kind to pace but both women in his life were gone and his best friend was following his daughter to another planet and he didn't feel like chewing on his toenails in his office waiting for news. He was never one to wait for news. Now, in situations when his helplessness overwhelms everything else, he found his compulsive, take-action nature drive him towards madness. He had to do something.

Just as he turned back into the room, he ran right into Teal'c. "You must not enter, O'Neill," he said.

"I gotta see her, T. I have to see if she's ok."

"It would be best if you remained here."

"What are you talking about? Why can't I see her? …Is it serious?"

Teal'c face was more grim than usual. It did not bode well on him. "Perhaps it is _she_ that does not wish to see _you_, O'Neill."

This made Jack freeze, wide-eyed. He knew he shouldn't ask further but instead, he stared Teal'c down until the poor man took a large step aside and Jack went left through the door, straight into the infirmary.

And there she was. And there was Pete, sitting beside her with a hand atop hers. A smile turned to frown and Jack's worry turn into jealousy and hatred.

"Colonel O'Neill, right?" Pete said like the giddy schoolboy he was around Sam. Jack nodded. "Hey, thanks for getting Sam in here so quick. I guess she had a few too many last night."

Jack gave another nod of acknowledgement. He still refused to speak, nervously playing with his hands. It was awkward for a moment but Pete still smiled like a fool. Jack looked at Sam, Sam looked at Jack. Loathe flew threw the air, and Pete began to notice.

He was about to say something when Sam broke the silence. "Don't you think you should go see where Ree went? Her coordinates are still locked on the computer, I assume."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "You're sending _me_… to read a computer… for alien symbols?"

"Well she's _your_ daughter. You go look for her. I'm a little busy here," she said through gritted teeth.

Jack smirked sinisterly. "Technically, she's _your_ daughter. I don't raise her. You do. So get up and come on!"

_Ha! Sweet revenge,_ he thought. He wasn't sure why he'd mention their child in front of Pete but now he had his payback. For what, he didn't know either. For making him jealous? For making him worry? For making him regret…

Pete's eyes seemed to escape their sockets by now. He looked at Sam and at Jack and back to Sam and back to Jack and by now his neck would most surely hurt in the morning.

"So you two… and you had a… with _him_?" he stuttered slightly incoherently.

"Correction: _will_ have a daughter," Sam clarified. "She technically hasn't been born - I mean made yet…" His face was still dumbstruck. Sam feared he'd never blink again and his face was permanently frozen like that.

"Uh… My genetically-engineered clone from the future, born from _her_, came back to the past to apparently kidnap Dr. Jackson and make us all extremely uneasy. Any questions?" Jack made it perfectly clear he was in no way supportive of Pete.

Sam put on a face like she'd given up. But just then, her eyes lit up and she put on a smile. Pete noticed it and was taken aback. Jack was just surprised and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked.

"I know where she went."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as Daniel walked through the Gate, he found himself submerged in a great blue-green, endless sea. His glasses floated up from his ears just as he realized he couldn't breathe.

Just when he looked up and saw no end to his soon-to-be watery grave, he felt a hand clasp his wrist and turn him around.

Ree…

She smiled at him and kissed him, and for a moment, he felt his lungs fill up with air once more and then slowly he closed his eyes and saw the final reminder of his short life.

When he woke up, he was on his back on a shore looking straight up at what appeared to be a pair of bright suns. He closed his eyes quickly but the pain from the bright lights had already started.

He felt something drop on top of him, sucking the life from his lungs. "Hello, darling. Late night?" he heard someone say from on top of him. He painfully opened an eye again and saw Adrienne straddling him on the sand, the light from the suns forming a perfect halo behind her.

He opened both eyes fearlessly and looked at her brilliant smile and her innocently tilted head. Her hands were firmly pressed on his chest but he didn't care that he couldn't breathe. She was dripping wet but the look of her hair alone, pushed back behind one ear by a simple flower was enough to make him smile back.

"Am I dead?" he asked.

"No… why?"

"Because I see an angel."

"You know what? For a twenty-first century geek, you're pretty good with pretty _bad_ lines."

"Any form of charisma is purely your father's influence, I assure you."

Their smiles faded away at the mention of an outside world. She lifted a leg over and fell on her back beside him with her hands on her stomach. She looked up at the suns without a single wince and said, "We've a long way to go. It's waiting for us."

Daniel got up from the sand and looked around. The sand was a white color as if no one had ever stepped foot upon it. Their shapes were still imprinted, the only ones for as far as the eye could see.

On one end, the sea swayed in all its greatness. On the other, trees for miles. "I guess I should start making us a little tiki hut somewhere and gathering up some berries."

Adrienne laughed. He extended a hand for her to get up. "No need. The palace is just a couple miles away."

Daniel said with a puppy dog look, "But… But… I was about to do the macho provider thing!"

"Oh honey, with me there's never a manly and a girly. I'm always the man. And I can handle myself," she responded, patting him on the shoulder. She left him looking like a statue and walked right by him up into the trees to a palace in paradise. What else had he left if not her? So he followed her into her abyss.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam had gotten up from her bed at the infirmary so quickly that Pete was still contemplating the situation for 10 minutes before he noticed she wasn't there. She'd pulled Jack along with her, almost giving whiplash, and pulled him down the stairs to Level 28.

Still in her hospital gear, she sat down in the command chair of the control room and began to mess with the computers. Jack sat beside her but it was just for company, getting her coffee and things like that. He monitored some computers for when they finished their scans but she was running about 6 diagnostics at once.

"I thought you said you had it saved," he said.

"I did. Well the computer had it saved. When it shut, the address was saved to our files but when I… collapsed… the Gate shut off and Adrienne's eraser program went into effect before I could counteract it. She's good. This thing's almost perfect."

"Almost?"

"She erased it from the records but the computers still have a network log written in the computer's mainframe. The problem: it's written in code. So I'm setting up my own program to read it. But that means millions of lines of code and it takes a bit of time. So in the meanwhile, you're keeping me company."

"Ah, gotcha," Jack said as Sam concentrated nonstop on the computer screen before her. When she spoke, she didn't look at him and her voice was slightly monotone as if she couldn't dare focus on anything else.

A few hours later, she had a program running the diagnostics for her and all that was left was waiting. Jack had fallen asleep on the console. She didn't realize it had become night but underground, it wasn't like she could look out a window.

She pushed back her chair to rest her feet on the console when the squeaking of her chair woke him up. He groaned slightly and turned his head still on the console to face her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," she responded.

"What time is it?"

"You know I actually have no idea. Late, I guess."

He paused for a second before responding. She'd pushed a coffee mug mere centimeters from his nose. "Where's Pete?"

"He left. For good, I think."

"I'm sorry." He sounded sincere.

"No you're not. And I'm not sure I am either."

He threw her a grin, slowly lifting his head from the cold steel and plastic of the console and keyboard and looked at her with his usual kind eyes.

"I'm sorry. I know how much you wanted to escape this place."

"I didn't want to escape here. I wanted to escape you."

He knew she didn't mean it to seem callous and didn't respond right away. If anything, he took it as a compliment.

"I stopped trying to escape _you_ a hell of a long time ago, Sam." She smiled back sleepily and yawned. "Why don't you go to sleep? I'll watch the computers," he continued.

She nodded with a smile and went to get up when the computer started beeping. She sat back down and rolled her chair closer to the computer. Two words blinked on and off on the screen: "Address Found".

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART SIX:**

**--**What is Adrienne looking for?

--What are they going to find when they reach the palace? Ruins or Harem girls?

--Who's going after her and Daniel now that they have the planet address?

--Is Pete really gone?

--Did Jack forgive her for what he thinks happened at her house the other morning?

--And… why did Sam _really_ collapse?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep tuned in! It gets a little scary for a while and then someone dies. Stories develop between characters. We finally understand the natural abomination that is "Adrienne O'Neill." The snogging begins! Someone retires, someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… READ & REVIEW!


	6. Behold Dionysus

"**Level 28"**

**SUMMARY**: A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

**MAJOR 'SHIPS**: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

**NOTE!** Forgive the delay. I've been working on a few chapters ahead, and believe it or not, I do have a life. But I promise the wait was not pointless. This is by far one of my favorite chapters. We welcome to our list of characters the infamous Dionysus.

And now…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART SIX: **_Behold Dionysus_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne walked through the trees carefully, Daniel following her every step.

"So what's the story on this Dionysus? Is he a Goa'uld? An Ancient? Old buddy of yours?" Daniel asked, still refusing to look up at anything other than her boot prints in the sand.

"It's not a person, Daniel. It's a part of a weapon. If I can destroy it, I won't have to kill anyone to stop the onslaught from coming."

"Onslaught of what?"

And so Adrienne began her story:

_Ancients called Ori are coming to destroy the Anquietus. And you're going to lead them to our galaxy. Millions will die. My father is one of them. I was created after his death and after the collapse of the Ori nation. Earth had been mostly left alone. But the rogue agents were not simply happy with this. They had to ensure that even the lowliest Prior had no power. And that they had a weapon in case the Ancients turned against us. So they built me. _

_Before Mother saved me, I was unstable. My mind was too immature despite the accelerated aging. I couldn't take the information put in my brain. They took out my parents' memories but I was already going insane. I was 4 years old when it happened. I already had the body of a 25-year-old and the mentality of a 50-year-old… Jack. _

_The Goa'uld DNA in me, and there was much, was slowly taking over. When Mother rescued me, that was the first thing she erased. I had no memories of what I'd done, of who I'd killed for them. So many people… _

_So Mother built a failsafe in my DNA, like the one in Jack. The Asgard tried to help her but they still died out. I was not their salvation. Quite the opposite in fact. A few million stem cells later and I died anyways. When I was reborn, I had no memories, and no feelings. Mother taught me to feel. Taught me the ways of the military, and of humanity. For decades, I fought to preserve and expand our nations, even as we warred with ourselves. _

_And then they came and pulled her away from me. They locked me up in a cage beside her and made me watch as they tortured her for two whole months. I asked her every day when it would be ok to escape but she only answered, 'Not yet. They have not received my call. When they do, they will come.'_

_Our 65th night in captivity, the Gate woke me up. It called to me, I thought. I could sense it turning and moving and it beckoned our saviors. I told Mother of the Gate's call and she told me to go to it, to escape and find my liberator. But I couldn't leave without her and her rescue slowed me down. The 38-minute window was almost up and I had to leave her behind. _

_When I reached the Gate room, my saviors were waiting for me… waiting to take me to Sanctuary, a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. They seemed to think the future was meant to play out. They didn't want to interfere. But I couldn't leave her there. I knew she was probably already dead but I went back to the ruins of the SGC nonetheless. _

_Sadly, I was right. She was moments from death when I reached her. There was nothing I could do, with all the powers at my disposal. She still died. But in her hand, I found a note. It had a date and a time to make my escape. I spent 3 days hidden in the overrun ruins of Cheyenne, waiting for that moment to come. And it did. _

_After that, I ran back to the Gate and dialed Sanctuary, just as it said. I pass through a solar flare and here I am. _

"So you knew it would take you back in time?" Daniel asked.

"Oh yeah, I've read all the reports remember? 1969, I believe was the year."

Daniel smiled but when he looked up at her to reciprocate with a joke, there she was standing before a grand palace, mid-10th century Middle Eastern.

"Is that? That looks like…" Daniel stuttered.

"The Taj Mahal? Nah not even close. But it looks like it, doesn't it? Let's just hope it won't hold _our_ coffins."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam was frantically going through her office for things she'd need on the rescue mission. That's what they were calling it but she knew Daniel went of his own accord. Why Adrienne left was the actual mystery. There must have been something, a realization that made her want to leave at this time and from this place to this planet.

Sam's hand trembled as she went for a small pad on the table. She withdrew it and examined it. Was it fear? Was it anxiety? Was it stress?

It's got to be stress, she thought. _Damn it, Daniel. I hope you're ok._

"Hey," she heard coming from her doorway. "You ok?"

"I'm fine Janet," she responded to Dr. Frasier. "Just a little tired is all."

"You don't collapse for no reason, Sam. Anybody else I could understand but you don't," Janet said, entering the lab and sitting on the metal stool across from her.

"What's up, Janet? What did the test results say?"

Janet didn't answer right away. She looked down at her resting hands then closed her eyes. "This is the part of medicine I hate. We found… a discrepancy."

"With Adrienne's results?"

"No, with yours."

Sam froze, her blue eyes open wide in even greater, trembling fear. "Tell me," she said in a very small voice.

"You're dying."

----------------------------------------------

Jack was getting changed in the men's locker room when he looked up at the inside of the locker door. A picture of the team at one of his future birthdays had been pinned up to the metal door a funny but obscene magnet.

He raised an eyebrow and looked around before taking it off the door. He was indeed alone, as far as he could tell. He brought it closer and smiled. Sam had come to him that day and asked what was going to happen to them, as blunt as daylight in early morning's wake.

He'd looked at her seriously and leaned in to kiss her but she refused. She only wanted to know. But that he could not give her. Any answer he was tempter to give her would surely hurt more than any good it would do them.

She'd walked away after a few moments of silence, looking into each other's eyes. His face had said it all.

"The world is more important than us."

And Sam, more than anyone, understood. If either of them were lost to the SGC, the safety of the planet could suffer. People would surely die, but what could they do? Jack felt the need to hold her overcome him every time she was near, the need to kiss her every time she spoke…

But there he was, staring down at that picture, and he couldn't help think not only who had put it there but how great she looked sitting on his lap as he blew out his candles. Daniel was clapping in the back in great glee and Teal'c had a plate already out for the chocolate cake to come to his rescue.

_There were days when things were simple_, he thought. _I'd be surrounded by smelly, hairy men all day, jumping over Baghdad in black ops, killing faceless enemy soldiers. How is it I can't handle the thought of a single, leggy blonde._

He smiled to himself and went to pin the torn picture back on when he noticed the writing in the back.

"For your collection" had been written in large letters resembling his own.

He looked around again and reached down to the base of the locker, taking out an old cigar box. Inside, he kept a large array of old photos. His own, his old family, and even quite a few of his new one. He carefully placed it on top of the small pile and wiped away his smile.

Now that they knew the truth of their future, he couldn't hide from his feelings anymore. If she felt the same way, that meant they _could_ have a future together. Even if he died so prematurely. Even if he was too old to enjoy like he wanted.

Suddenly, the door to the locker room opened and SG13 came in to change for a recon mission and he quickly hid the box again. But he knew he couldn't hide it much longer. He didn't want to. He had a family again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c had heard the news of the mission but had not bothered to protest why he wasn't going. He had other plans, after all. He had to find that wife of his. It brought a simple smile to his face but he was still fearful. What if whomever he found was not the woman of his future? Was if he was destined for someone else?

He desperately wished Adrienne would tell him but he knew that if she did, he would always wonder what might have been. Besides, he had other things to worry about. She had entrusted on him quite a few things that he wished he could keep. But the world depended on it and her confidence had to be betrayed.

He replayed in his head her icy words: _"Should anything happen to me, I want you to carry on this information. Do you understand? They cannot know anything until the situation arises."_

He'd promised but he had not truly meant it and he thought she knew that. So he trusted her long enough and when it came that Sam and Jack were leaving for the planet, he went to find them and tell them the truth.

But it was too late. They were already at the Gate. He stood on the control room floor and waved goodbye, resigned of all need. They would find her and she would get them through it. The situation did not require for them to know the truth.

He saw them walk onto the ramp in their diving masks and gear after a rather disturbing MALP read and step through, hand in hand.

He turned to face a very worried Hammond and said, "General Hammond, I believe we have a great many things of which we must converse."

Hammond tried not to smirk but Teal'c choice of words always made him laugh and it was a welcome change after sending his two best officers into the middle of an ocean, most surely to their deaths.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel took a weary step into the palace only to find Adrienne's hand upon his chest, stopping him from going any further.

"What?" he asked.

"Let me go first. It will try to kill outsiders."

Daniel did not like this. "What! What's _it_? There was no mention of killing anyone back at the Gate."

She laughed a bit, completely ignoring him and going on, her wet boots slipping slightly on the marble floor. It looked as if it had been carved from a single slab a hundred yards long.

"Dionysus… where are you, love? Come out, come out… wherever you are…" she taunted, cautiously walking on her toes. "I know I'm early honey but I need your help."

Daniel felt the cold wind blow the door to the palace wide open. The wind rustled past Adrienne, encircling her and lifting her a foot above ground. But she only smiled, embracing the wind with open arms as it became corporeal.

Before her now stood a little boy no older than 5 dressed in white robes, holding onto a sprig of lavender.

"Ariadne? Is that you?" he asked sweetly.

Adrienne's eyes began to water as she knelt down on the cold marble floor, her arms open wide. The little boy dropped the sprig and ran to her gleefully.

"It's ok, Dionysus. I'm here. I'm here…" Adrienne whispered.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack and Sam stepped out of the ocean and onto dry land. They took off their mask and discarded their air tanks in a safe bush by the shore. Neither dared speak. Neither dared to so much as glance at each other.

"Where do we go from here, Carter?" he asked.

Sam looked up at him with weary yet startled eyes. For a second, she thought he'd meant where they'd go in their relationship but she snapped out of it and looked away. She took out the pad she'd been working on and began to fiddle with buttons and screens.

"That way," she said, pointing to the trees. Jack threw his gun over his shoulder and like a good little soldier made way for the castle.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel stood frozen at the doorway, his hand trembling. This was the infamous Dionysus? A 5-year-old boy? He wasn't sure how long he waited but there he was in the doorway, his mouth slightly ajar.

And worst of all, he was an Ancient.

"Adrienne, what's going on? What is he?" Daniel asked with deep fear and slight jealousy. He went to take a step forward but remembered her warnings and stopped.

"Don't move, Danny," she called out to Daniel and then said to the boy with a calm and soothing tone he'd yet to hear from her, "Dionysus, can you lift the wards, please?"

The light-haired boy nodded and walked towards Danny, sliding atop the long edges of his robes over the slippery marble. He grabbed Daniel's hand and they began to walk hand in hand toward Adrienne smiling in the middle of the room.

"Ree… explain this to me," Daniel said through gritted teeth.

The boy ran to her and hugged her legs, looking at Danny in fear. "Daniel, meet Dionysus. Dionysus, this is a friend of mine. He's going to help us get back to where we need to go. Is that ok?"

The boy nodded by her thigh and Daniel watched as she smiled down at him almost motherly. Daniel picked up the sprig of lavender from the floor and knelt down by the boy, handing it to him with a sincere smile.

The boy took it warily and said, "I know you. You were one of us… I am not to relate with your kind."

"You can trust him," Adrienne assured. The boy did not respond but look Daniel over.

"Where do we have to go?" Daniel asked, getting up from the cold marble.

"We need to reach the other Stargate. It's at the other end of the palace. Dionysus can take us but I'll need your help to decipher the keys to the entrance. He can't read it. They erased it from his mind."

"Who are they? And why did he say us?"

"I'm part Ancient, Daniel," Adrienne said. "I died a hell of a long time ago."

"Well you'd mentioned that but how can a clone be Ascended?"

Ree smiled but didn't respond.

"Lead the way," she said to Dionysus and they began to go deeper into the palace.

Adrienne fell behind so she could hold onto Daniel's hand with an enthusiastic if not dreadful grip. He looked at her questioningly but she only looked down at their hands and inhaled sharply, trying for dear life to hold back tears.

He didn't inquire further but he had to know one thing, "Ree… why did you ask if I knew where Dionysus was?"

She sighed and answered in whispers, "Where I come from, an SG-team finds him here in 2008. When they found out he wasn't human, they began to experiment on him like you tried to do on me and they found the gene that allows for me to be born. After years of incarceration thanks to our happy little sons of bitches at the local rogue organization, he freed himself and came to find me. By then, his body had aged. The Others had abandoned him and he had no one… except me. Mother and I took him into the SGC and it wasn't long before we realized what he really was. A weapon…"

"He's who I remind you of, isn't he?" Daniel asked timidly.

"Yeah, he has the same signature as you. You were both exiled from Ascension. When I first saw you, I thought it was you _because_ of that signature."

"You loved him didn't you?"

"I still do."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART SEVEN:**

**--**What does Adrienne plan on doing with Dionysus?

--How far did Adrienne and Dionysus' relationship go?

--Will Jack and Sam catch up with them?

--If Adrienne didn't fall from Ascension, does that mean she's still an Ancient?

--What did Adrienne tell Teal'c?

--What of this plan to kill one of her parents? Is that her mission still?

--What are the drawbacks to Ree's immorality?

--And finally… Is Ree really a clone?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep tuned in! It gets a little scary for a while and then someone dies. We finally understand the natural abomination that is "Ree." The snogging begins! Someone retires, someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… REVIEW!


	7. Escape from Paradise

Without further ado…

**PART SEVEN: **_Escape from Paradise_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

As they walked through the trees, Jack lagged behind a bit. Sam took it as a sign of regret and tried desperately not to say anything. For a moment he stopped and listened then continued. She thought he was acting weird, even paranoid.

Then her little sensors started beeping even faster. "We're getting closer," she said calmly, no emotion in her tone. He sensed it and was about to say something to make her feel better, tell her anything at all to make it seem like it was before Adrienne but he never got his chance.

"Do you hear that?" Jack said, creeping up behind her as stealthily as always.

"Hear what?" Sam whispered back. "What is it?"

He shushed her and pulled her into the trees, pushing her up against the thick trunk of a tree. He was nose to nose to her but she didn't move away. His eyes scanned her all over and he smiled. She thought he was coming in for the kiss, no matter how appropriate the situation but she didn't move away now either. She decided she was waiting for _him_ to make the first move. But instead of kissing her, his chin fell upon her shoulder and his body slid down her front. She stood frozen in shock then she saw the super soldier standing in his wet, black armor, a weapon raised.

Jack was dying at her feet, an impermeable, nearly un-killable soldier stood with a gun in her direction, but she couldn't think of anything. If she reached for her gun, it would shoot her. She couldn't reach for Jack's. He was unconscious and wasn't coming to her rescue any time soon.

_So much for Prince Charming_, she thought. _But when was he ever?_

She slowly raised her hands in a sign of surrender and gave a long exhale. He walked towards her, weapon still raised confidently. She knew it probably had no lips but felt his smile upon her from under his mask.

She loathed it, and she loathed him. And that's when she realized just what he was. He was how she could make an Adrienne. He was the key.

If she survived long enough to reach the others, she just might have a chance to change the future.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"How much farther is the second Gate?" Daniel asked after what seemed like a few hours of walking through the same lavish palace.

He hadn't seen a single person, a single room. It was just a large hallway with an elaborate roof that changed as they walked. Not a door in sight, he feared an immortal end. They could go on forever but he had an end coming and he feared it.

He knew it. Had Oma left it in him, he didn't know… that sense of foreboding, foretelling. What scared him most was that Adrienne might know, with all her great mysterious abilities.

He had no idea but _she_ was why Oma had left him the warning.

"It's only a few ways there. We're getting closer, Danny. I promise."

He did not like her tone. It seemed patronizing to him. Suspicion had begun to grow within his mind and Dionysus was at the base.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The soldier was not alone. He seemed to wait for others to come. In the meantime, he sat on a log across from her. Jack's head rested on her lap and she absentmindedly stroked his hair off his forehead as she looked off into nothing.

"I know you can understand me. What are you waiting for?" she asked, looking him over as he stared at her through his black helmet. "What do you want from me?"

There was a moment of silence and Sam had given up.

"Instructions," came a hoarse voice from his direction. "Waiting for instructions."

"Let me guess. Ba'al or Anubis? Anubis, right? That son of a bitch. How'd he know we were here?"

The soldier tilted its head, still studying her. He got up and walked over to her, knocking her across the face with the back of his hand. She straightened up and looked at him with scorn. He went back to sit on the log and wait, and she took it as a sign that she should be quiet, even if it does her no comfort.

Jack lay dying still, disconnected to the real world. Had he known what of Sam, she knew he would have not hesitated to shoot the soldier where he stood. And that did bring her some comfort, and the forewarning that he might never be a crappy Prince Charming again.

She had decided that while she could never give up on Jack, she had to leave him behind and the thought alone made her stomach twist in knots.

So she made her plan. She began talking again, of everything and anything… whatever she had to say to bother him. But he did not move, only stared. Her plan was slowly coming to be a bust.

And then she began, "Have you ever loved anyone?"

The soldier did not respond. She knew it had not. But she felt him flinch no matter how much he hid it.

"You haven't, I figure, but you know what it is. As a being you desire it don't you?"

This time, it paused and responded, "I do."

"This is Jack," she said, stroking the dying colonel's hair and looking down to him as sweetly as she truly felt. "I love him… very much. But I never told him. I still think he knew. He always knew everything; the things humans can tell from knowing someone for years he knew from looking into your eyes. I'm sorry you could never experience this. But you are not a person. You are an object. Objects cannot love."

"I love my God," it hoarsely answered.

She smirked. She was getting to him. "Does he love _you_? Why would he send you to die if he loved you? He made you, but you are not his child. He gave you memories, but they are not yours… You are incomplete. And for that, he has made it so that you will never be loved."

His breathing was erratic, she could tell from his rising and lowering chest armor. He got up again and pointed the gun to her head. "Do it," she taunted. "Then let's see how much your God loves you after you've killed his only hostage."

So he struck her across the face again, so hard that she nearly fell back off the log had Jack not been on her lap. But as she went to snap back up to scowl at him, she reached for Jack's sidearm.

She fell off the log and shot the soldier in the right side as she and Jack fell to the ground.

It did not die but fell over the log. She shot it so many times, until she was sure it was dead twelve times over. It had hurt Jack, and revenge was all too sweet for her. She quickly recomposed herself and tended to Jack who had fallen on his injury and the pain had woken him.

"Colonel, are you alright!" she shouted, lifting him slowly off the ground.

He slowly groaned, "I've been shot, Carter. Of course I'm not alright."

"How are you still alive, sir?" she asked, sitting him on the log and kneeling down on the ground in front of him. She was never so happy to see those brown eyes.

"I have no idea. I think I was just stunned."

"I don't think he wanted to kill us, sir. He was waiting for someone to come and take us somewhere. I think they know Adrienne's here."

"Yeah… I heard."

Sam looked up rather quickly. His expression was blank, examining his pained, numb hand upon his lap.

She refused to breathe, refused to look him straight in the eye. Their glances never seemed to meet.

That's when he lifted her chin with his numb hand and leaned down to her, resting with her, forehead to forehead.

"You heard everything, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yup," he said with a silly grin. "And you're right. I always knew."

She narrowed her eyes, looking straight into his tired, pained ones, and then smacked him on the back of the head with an open hand. He smiled and winced. His back was killing him, slowly.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she groaned. "It could have saved us _so_ much trouble."

"No, it wouldn't have. And you knew too! You're a feminist all the way up till it comes to admitting your feelings. Then it's the _man's_ job."

She smiled wearily. She was so tired. And that's when she decided to tell him.

"Sir… Jack…" she said, sitting beside him on the log and looking down at her lap. "There's something you need to know."

A tear fell on her quivering hands upon her lap, which he noticed and wiped off when he held her hand in his. It refused to stop shaking.

"Sam, what's going on? You know you can't lie to me."

"There's something… there's something wrong with me. I'm not well."

"Does it hurt where he hit you?" he asked, caressing her reddening cheek so sweetly it was killing her. She nodded no.

"I'm dying," she whispered into the listening wind just as the footsteps of soldier made way through the beach shore, coming their way.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne stopped dead in her tracks and turned on her heel, facing a stricken Daniel. "What's going on?" he asked.

"They're here," she whispered, running over to Dionysus and picking him up. "We have to run, ok? Can you take us to the Gate? I know it hurts but we have to get there. Can you do that for me?"

Dionysus closed his eyes and concentrated, and soon enough, they were in front of a pile of rocks that blocked the hallway from floor to roof.

"Where are we? Where's the Gate?" Daniel asked.

Dionysus opened his eyes slowly and painfully. "It's been blocked off. I can't pass through those stones. They're too thick."

"Who could have done this?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter. We have to go back," Adrienne said, still holding the boy in her arms, his arms wrapped behind her neck. "I'll have to take us. Everyone hold onto me."

Daniel reached for her hand and for a moment they smiled at each other. "We'll have to reach Sam and Jack first."

"They're here?" Daniel asked. "She must have followed us."

"No, she found the address through the hole in the program I used to erase the address. She's tracking us with that radioactive isotope in your pocket."

Daniel reached into his pocket and took out the small rock Sam had given him and was amazed it hadn't floated away when he came through the Gate.

Adrienne squinted her eyes and looked off into the hallway. "They're injured. Soldiers are coming through the Gate and they already got attacked by one. Jack got hit in the back and Sam's freaking out about something. We've got to hurry."

"How do you know this?" Daniel asked, amazed at her toneless telling.

"Sam told me. I can hear her thoughts."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I thought you could only feel… feelings."

"We have a special connection. She doesn't know I'm hacking in."

"Can she do the same?"

"Yeah but she'll never know, right?"

Daniel lowered his eyebrow and nodded reluctantly. She then took in a deep breath and their surroundings began to shift so quickly that as if in a blurry blink, they were standing right in front of Sam and Jack in the middle of the woods.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam had just told Jack the whole truth of her slow death but he hardly had time to digest it before Adrienne, Daniel, and a little boy that reminded him of Charlie showed up a few yards away near a thick-trunk tree.

Sam quickly jumped up from the ground startled, expecting more soldiers. "Ree?"

Adrienne didn't look at her. Her skin showed the signs of utter and undeniable exhaustion. "Danny, take Dionysus," she said in-between gasps. "Right now, please."

Daniel quickly took him from her arms as she slid down the side of the thick-trunk tree. Sam ran to her but she was already on the ground, her eyes slowly closing under the harsh daylight above.

"Ree! Ree! Wake up!" Sam yelled, slapping Adrienne sharply to wake her up, but she didn't even flinch.

"We have to get her back to the SGC," Jack said as he tried desperately to get off that godforsaken log. Parts of him were still numb and his whole body ached. He was bleeding, he knew all too well, but didn't care. "The Gate's underwater. We have to call for backup."

Daniel stepped in and helped Jack straighten up with his free hand. "We can't. Anubis' soldiers are coming up the water right now and the other Stargate is buried under a mile of rubble. We're not getting off this planet by Stargate."

"How quickly can the Prometheus get here, you think?" Sam asked the tired colonel.

"They don't even know we need help," Jack said.

"Oh yes they do," said a voice coming from behind Sam. Adrienne had opened her eyes ever so slightly. Her hands laid limp beside her and her chest rose so slowly that it seemed like she was not breathing at all. And she felt like it too.

Sam looked over her product of science, her daughter lying in humid green fatigues against the dark bark of the tree. Everything around them seemed so natural, so real. But Adrienne did not. She didn't belong to them anymore. She was greater than all of them. And so was that little boy.

"How?" she asked.

"Teal'c's on his way. I told him to fly here if I didn't contact them in 2 hours. It's been over 4. They'll be here in a few minutes, if Hammond took his warning," Adrienne explained.

A heavy but relieved sigh left Sam. They had to wait it out, live long enough for them to find them.

"I'm sure he did," Sam tried to assure them as well as herself.

"For all our sakes, let's hope he did."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

It was an hour later and no one had come for the begotten wanderers. They had made way back to the palace where they held some maneuverability over the situation. Jack leaned on Daniel and Adrienne on Sam and Dionysus led the way with the sprig of lavender still in his small clutches.

"So what's the story on _him_?" Jack asked as the palace got into their view. "He a native?"

"No," Adrienne responded wryly. That was all she gave. Jack looked over at Sam whose eyes seemed to say, "Don't pursue it further."

But he couldn't stand looking at her and returned to the grand vista of the palace that crept up on them through the trees.

"How are they going to find us? It's a big planet," Daniel wondered aloud.

Adrienne tried to answer. "No it isn't, actually. It's a moon. But yes they can find us with sensors or they can track Sam's radioactive isotope…"

"Or they can check the only structure on the entire _moon_. Or they can track the Stargate… whatever!" Jack exclaimed. "Let's worry about getting to the goddamned palace, ok!"

Sam smiled to herself but Adrienne noticed and held it in her memory till she could use it for blackmail like any good O'Neill would. "Do us a favor, Jack, and shut the hell up," Adrienne commented and Sam smiled even brighter. But when she saw the look on Ree's face, her smile went away.

"What is it?" she asked her daughter. "What do you hear?"

"They're out of the water. Now there's nothing stopping them. They have us beat here. The palace will block his abilities and I'm too weak to stop them," Adrienne said. "We're going to have to find some advantage. I say we get up on the trees and form a sniper line."

"Jack's not up for walking right now, let alone climbing a tree," Daniel said.

"I can do it," Jack groaned in pain.

Adrienne shook her head. "No he's right. You go in the palace with Dionysus. Protect him ok? He's more important than all of us," she said.

They all agreed and Daniel and Sam began to climb up the large trunks while Adrienne told Dionysus to hide behind the entryway to the palace.

Jack stood below and helped Sam get up to the lowest trunk. She squatted down on the branch and smiled down at him. He smiled back and whispered, "Be careful, Sam. If we get through this, I promise I'll take you fishing."

She felt like crying but held it back and responded with a smile. Adrienne saw this and walked over to Jack. Sam was already out of ear length.

He leaned into his daughter and whispered in her ear, "Whatever happens here… I'm proud of you."

Sam looked down in time to see Adrienne shed a tear and nod then go off to a tree across from hers and climb as effortlessly as she breathed.

But Jack refused to hide in the palace. After they'd all taken their place in the trees, he stood in the entrance, plain to see as the thunderous footsteps of impenetrable soldiers became ever louder and the enemy came ever closer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART EIGHT:**

--What's going to happen to Jack?

--Does Adrienne know Sam is dying?

--If so, is Sam really "Mother"?

--What's taking Teal'c so long?

--Is hiding in the trees really going to help them any?

--And finally… Are Sam and Jack finally going to go on that fishing trip?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW! **


	8. Moments of Happiness, Shattered

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART EIGHT: **_Moments of Happiness, Shattered…_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam opened her eyes to the bright lights of a familiar infirmary. _Prometheus_. She felt the calm of relief over her but when she realized she could do nothing to remember anything after the planet, she sat up quickly and looked at the bed beside her.

Jack laid there resting comfortably, but her heart could not stop itself from jumping through her skin. She ripped the IV off her arm and the monitors from her chest and ran to his side.

"Jack? Jack, are you ok?" Sam whispered, kneeling desperately beside his bed. He woke up reluctantly and looked at her questioningly as he realized where he was.

"Carter? What the hell's going on? Where are we?" he asked, looking at her with concern.

"We're in _Prometheus_, I think. Do you mind?" she asked, attempting to examine his chest wound.

"Whoa Carter, I know I said I'd take you fishing but this is hardly the place."

She rolled her eyes and smiled as she examined his chest. "So that's your idea of fishing? Well if I'd known sooner, I might have accepted."

He raised an eyebrow. "Who are you and what have you done with Sam?"

She found herself giggling and cleared her throat to make it stop. "Damn it, Colonel, I saw you fall. I saw the blast hit you. Not that I'm not happy to see you, but why aren't you dead?"

He patted the bed beside his right thigh and she got up off her knees and sat up beside him on the edge. Her hospital gown was opened in the back but she didn't care. She felt her eyes tear up but ignored it. She was so tired and her arm hurt from where the needle once rested.

It was quiet for a while, the silence of the med deck not eerie or awkward but simply silent. He smiled at her kindly, the military bravado left back on that planet. His hand met hers on the hospital linen. His began to caress her arm with his gentle hand until she leaned in at his touch and kissed him.

It was the sweetest kiss she'd ever had. It wasn't messy or uncomfortable, slobbery or awkward. But when she realized her station once more, she backed off. He was a Colonel. She was a Major. And there was nothing they could do for now.

They hadn't been under alien influence or heavily medicated or any other little excuse they might have used it the past. He looked at her with worrisome eyes. Not hurt but worrisome. It hit her hard to pull away, more so that he felt no remorse.

"I'm sorry. I… I shouldn't have done that," she apologized, looking down at her fidgety hands.

"Sam, I-" but Daniel and Adrienne had come into the room and his attention was drawn elsewhere. Sam realized her dress was wide open in the back and ran to sit on her own bed as if she'd been caught in her room with a boy.

"Hey you're up! How are you feeling?" Daniel asked enthusiastically, a huge smile across his face but Sam knew it was because of Adrienne. Jack had no idea but narrowed his eyes at the sight of his jolliness.

"We're good, Daniel. We're alive… surprisingly."

"Teal'c came in just in time. Beamed you out just before they hit," Adrienne said.

"Where _is_ the old goat?" Jack asked with his usual smile. "He's so getting Star Wars for his birthday."

Everyone laughed but Adrienne refused to let anything but worry leave her eyes. Sam noticed but Jack was already into a conversation with Daniel about some sort of cheese. Sam got up from her bed, holding onto the back so she didn't flash anyone, and walked over to Adrienne.

They walked off to the changing room where Adrienne waited outside and leaned against the door as Sam put on some fatigues. "Ree, what's going on? What really happened back there?" said Sam, her voice full of concern.

"The most important predicament right now is when you are going to tell Dad you're dying."

Sam inhaled sharply. Adrienne sensed it and regretted her forwardness. "He already knows," Sam answered after a quiet moment. "I told him after he got shot."

"Oh Sam, I'm sorry. I hadn't read that."

"Read that?"

"Uh yeah… I can sort of read your mind."

"Feelings, right? Daniel told me."

"Er… no. I can _see_ into your mind. Just yours."

It didn't really reassure Sam that she was the only one she could read. "Just me? Why not Colonel O'Neill? I would have thought-"

"Since genetically-speaking I'm his _clone_?"

"Are you? His clone, I mean."

"You of all people know I can't tell you that, Sam."

"Sam? See that's what I don't understand: how can you stand there and call Colonel O'Neill Dad while the woman that gave birth to you gets the 'Sam'? I'm hurt."

Adrienne smiled. She would have laughed but it hurt to do so. "You're not my mother yet. Jack… Jack's always been my Dad, even if I never met him."

Sam came out of the room and whispered shyly into her daughter's ear, "Uh… Ree… Were we… Did Colonel O'Neill and I ever…"

"Like bunnies, my dear. Like bunnies…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**Two Months Later --- April 2004**

"I'm not doing it," Jack said. "There's no way in hell."

Adrienne sat across from him in the mess hall, her eyes narrowed. "Her birthday's coming up in a few days. I think she'd really like it."

"Er… over my dead body," he responded dismissingly.

"That can be arranged, buddy," she joked in her own playful tone.

He pushed his plate of oatmeal aside slowly and leaned in, narrowing his eyes to hers. "Ok fine. Half an hour."

"No… 2 hours and a midnight stroll."

"One hour, a walk through the beach, and a picnic."

"Why would you go for a walk through the beach _and_ a picnic? Why not just have a picnic _at_ the beach?"

"And what… make a sandwich with actual sand? Picnics are meant to be had at parks and in the middle of nowhere so you can run around naked and nobody can see."

Adrienne raised not one but both eyebrows. "I didn't need that image thank you."

"Yes well you had it coming. How about… one hour at the museum, a midnight swim at the lake, and… a homemade dinner?"

Adrienne gave a chipper nod with the usual Carter hundred-watt smile. "Just don't share the juicy details this time, please. It's creepy enough."

"How's Daniel doin'?"

"He'll deal. Don't worry. I'm not."

"Hmm. I think you should talk to him. It really hit him."

"He'll be fine."

"Ree… Talk to him. I mean it. He's been shlupping around like an idiot all week."

She looked tired and apologetic. Her hair had begun to turn red in certain places almost like sparse highlights and her eyes had turned to a golden honey/green. It had begun to worry him, this change. He knew she worried too. Her mind drifted during meetings, during missions…

"I'm going to pay Sam a visit. She in her lab?" he asked her.

"Yeah she's been working all day." He smiled and went to get up when she crossed her arms and looked over at the Jell-O in the back. "You might want to take her something since she hasn't left the lab since yesterday."

"Probably right," he said. "What's she working on anyway?"

She sighed. "A way to be rid of me," she said and looked away.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey," Jack mumbled, entering Sam's lab with two ice cream glasses full of Jell-O, one green and one blue. The blue one had already been begun and he had a spoon in his mouth, presumably because he couldn't have gotten down the hallway without food. Beer would just be inappropriate… considering it was 12:30 in the afternoon, not that he wasn't tempted.

As soon as she saw him, she knew the story. "What no beer?" she asked, pulling the spoon from his mouth and putting it back in the blue Jell-O.

"Hammond's got this whole Prohibition thing going on. I think he put it in just for me, 'cause I could swear I saw a few bottles of scotch in his desk. I think they were the type you hijack from dirty motel minibars that charge by the hour," Jack joked.

Sam laughed heartily, refusing to hold back a single giggle or chuckle as she once did. "And how would _you_ know what dirty motel minibar scotch bottles look like?" she said with a bright smile.

"Uh… recon?" he said, feeding her a bit of Jell-O which she ate with great satisfaction and gratitude. Two days locked in a stuffy lab can make a girl hungry.

Her smile slowly started to fade and her eyes shifted around as if the world was melting before her and she had to catch it or lose it forever. She reached for the table and grabbed thin air, slipping down the side of the table.

Jack ran to catch her but she was already on the ground. Her body began to shake as if in seizures and blood was leaking from her ear and mouth.

"Sam! Sam, wake up! Hold on. Just hold on!" he yelled. He ran to the phone on the wall and called the infirmary. "Yeah, infirmary? Major Carter just collapsed in her lab. She's in seizures and I can't move her. Get Frasier down her NOW!"

And he went back to the floor behind her, resting her head in his arms and holding onto her for dear life as the seizures slowly subsided.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne was walking down the hallway on the way to Dionysus' room but all she could think of was Daniel. She'd ruined so much for him. She hadn't meant to but there it was. She couldn't return his feelings. She couldn't even tell him why he felt that way. For she knew that it would be impossible for him to love her otherwise. After all, who could love someone that was more thing than human?

She was a few doors away from Dionysus when she felt her hand shake uncontrollably. She looked down but there was nothing there. Her hand was steady as always but her nerves were shot. The sensation alone was enough to make her wince and stop to breathe.

She forced herself to reach Dionysus' door but his hand was already on the knob and it was already opening by the time she reached for it.

"Something's wrong," she said, stumbling into the doorway.

"I know." His small face was stern and serious. He moved aside and she stumbled to the bed, sitting on the edge. "It's Samantha."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel was in his office looking over some translations of the writings on the walls of Dionysus' palace when Jack came in with a face lost in itself. Shocked even.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked.

Jack didn't answer right away. He refused to look up from the floor, from oblivion.

"She's sick."

Daniel assumed Adrienne and figured she'd be alright so he didn't seem so worried right away. "Don't worry she'll be fine."

Then Jack looked up and Daniel saw the bags of worry and exhaustion under his eyes. "No Daniel. Sammy's dying," he whispered. "She's dying."

And he sat on the stool across from him. Daniel couldn't respond. He didn't think it serious till Jack said, "She's been dying for a while."

Daniel felt the blood hide from his face, leaving him pale and mindless, not a thought for miles. "Does Frasier know? What happened?"

"Yea, Frasier knows. She's known for a month. They're not sure what it is, or they won't tell me, but it's killing her pretty slowly."

"How… How long does she have?" Daniel asked, choking on his words, dreading the answer.

"Two months…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The news had gotten to Daniel. Even after Jack left, he felt the presence of a broken man still lingering over him. He had always known about Jack and Sam. Who didn't?

All the times she'd been possessed by an alien being or he'd been lost on some forgotten planet in the corner of a distant galaxy… she'd never forgotten about him. He'd never given up.

And Daniel knew. They all knew.

So when he heard the words come out of Jack's mouth so helplessly, he wondered what had changed. Why had he given up so easily? They hadn't mentioned how the Tok'ra could help. They could get a symbiote in her and take it out after she'd healed. They could see if Adrienne could help.

Then the thought hit him: How long has Adrienne known?

And what's worse, how could she not have done something? She had to know the cure. She had to know they'd figure it out sooner or later if Sam would eventually live to give birth to her. Why hadn't she helped?

Anger reached him and his pale exterior turned to a heated pink. Before he knew it, he was on his way to her room in a blind fury through SGC hallways. She wasn't in her room; she wasn't in Teal'c's, not in the mess hall, not in the command room.

Then he went to Dionysus' room and pushed the door in breathlessly. She sat on the bed, with the boy in her arms. A light surrounded them, like a glow that blinded him for a moment. When he saw again, Dionysus was no longer a mere boy. He was a teenager, standing a mere meter away from him and looking on him as if he were an intruder.

Daniel stood struck, his fury turned to worry. "What have you done to her?" he asked but it came out more like a loud demand.

The boy smiled almost sinisterly and Daniel went around him to Adrienne who had collapsed sideways onto the bed. He called her name, begging her to open her eyes but she refused. She could hear him, she could move, but she was gone.

So he lifted her up effortlessly from the bed and in a rush of adrenaline, ran her up a floor to the infirmary, putting her on the bed beside her mother.

Sam had been intubated, put on an IV, and had machines monitoring her every heartbeat. It was tragic. He felt caught in-between mother and daughter, trying to decipher which one was worse.

He followed his heart to Adrienne, who had begun to push the nurses aside. He tried to help hold her down but she just kept saying she was fine, that she just needed to be left alone.

_Tell them to step back, Daniel, please_, he heard in his head. _I don't want them to get hurt!_

She sounded so desperate, as she looked at him finally with tearful eyes, two nurses holding her down. Her eyes were slowly turning gold, pushing away the blue. Not the gold of Goa'ulds. The gold of gods.

"Get back!" he yelled and let her go. The nurses looked at him puzzled but let her go slowly. She calmed down and looked up at the roof on the bed. Her eyes were completely gold now but they still refused to glow. As long as they didn't, he felt safe around her.

But that's when she began to convulse. Her chest rose up above the bed though her head remained anchored to the bed. The light began to leave her slowly in visible waves of gold powder-dust.

He went through the rings to touch her but when he did, a sense of fire reached his hand and he retracted. The rings of light were warm as well.

Through the door, Dionysus came in, blonde and innocent-looking. Daniel looked at him through menacing eyes. He ran to him with the incentive to punch him but saw a boy and held back.

"What did you do to her!" he asked, shaking the boy's shoulders. He didn't fight back but his face showed steady.

"Daniel, step back," Janet came up behind him and pulled him back.

Dionysus walked calmly to an unconscious Adrienne as if it were a stroll through the park and said, "Tell me, Daniel: Why are you so sure it was me?" and looked back to Sam on the next bed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART NINE:**

--How far had Jack and Sam gotten before she collapsed?

--Had her imminent death been the cause of their forwardness?

--Is there a cure?

--Is Sam killing Adrienne, or is Adrienne killing Sam?

--Why did Dionysus age just as Adrienne collapse?

--Is he literally sucking the life from her?

--Will Sam ever get her midnight stroll?

--Or… Will Jack find the cure?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**UP NEXT: **Jack attempts to find a cure to Sam's illness by going on a killing rampage with Teal'c to find her a symbiote.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW! **


	9. Splitting Paths

"**Level 28"**

**PLOT NOTE! From now on, the story follows two points of view: Jack and Teal'c's on an alien planet, and Sam, Daniel, and Adrienne's back at the SGC. No more confusing cliffhangers… for a little while. **

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**The story so far: **Daniel fancies Ree, who's in love with Dionysus who marries her in the future. But she's stuck because he's a kid. So she makes him big and gets herself sick.

Sam is dying and they don't know why. Jack's going crazy and out for suicide. He loves her and now he knows for sure, so he grabs Teal'c and they go search for a cure.

And now...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART NINE: **_Splitting Paths_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack was in the locker room hastily getting ready when Teal'c calmly came in with his hands behind his back.

"O'Neill, what do you attempt to do?" the stern Jaffa asked. "Has General Hammond given us a mission?"

Jack didn't stop shoving things from his locker into his bag. "No Teal'c. I'm going for help."

"Please elaborate, O'Neill. Help doing what?" Teal'c knew the answer but he asked anyway.

"The Tok'ra don't want to help 'cause our planetary relations are on the fritz and we can't get a hold of Bra'tac. Jacob's trying to find a symbiote but he's stuck on a mission in the middle of who-knows-where so… I'm going to get one myself," he explained calmly.

Teal'c was about to intrude on the complete suicidal nature of his mission but just then, he saw Jack stop his hasty packing and bend down to pick up something on the floor of the locker.

He sat down on the bench beside his large pack and opened the old cigar box of family memories. He had made recent additions since the mysterious picture of the birthday party over two months ago. There was one of Adrienne, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c taken badly at a celebratory dinner two days after they got back from the Prometheus, one of Daniel and Adrienne taken by themselves with Jack's camera one night in front of the Stargate, and one of Jack and Sam taken candidly by Adrienne.

He took it out and smiled sadly at it. It was of them kissing in a corner of Sam's office hidden from surveillance cameras above. Jack's hand blocked half of the picture but it could still be seen: His hand on the small of her back, pulling her in closer for a smiling kiss.

"O'Neill?" Teal'c's voice broke the memory.

"I gotta do it, T. Adrienne's proof that we can save her. If no one's going to help, we have to do it ourselves."

"Indeed. Then I offer my assistance," he responded, sitting down beside him and taking the photograph gently from the hand of the broken man. "I could never care for her the way you do, O'Neill. But I do care for her nonetheless. Allow me to aid you."

Jack didn't lift his eyes off the floor as he nodded quietly. He got the photo from Teal'c and put it in the breast pocket of his vest before getting up and slamming shut his locker.

He cleared his throat and turned to Teal'c. "Get changed. I'll meet you at the Gate in 20 minutes. I have to go say goodbye first."

The Jaffa nodded and stepped aside for Jack to leave, the cigar box still open on the abandoned bench.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel was sitting on a stool beside Adrienne's bed when Jack came in, dressed in full military wear. Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Where we goin'?" he asked.

"Not 'we'. Me and Teal'c. I need you to stay here and take care of them," Jack explained. "If we get stuck on another planet, you're their last chance."

Daniel was about to complain when he found his eyes pursuing Jack to Sam's bed where he sat down and began to caress her cheek. Her eyes opened slowly, followed by a smile.

Daniel felt out of place and decided to excuse himself, closing the curtain between Sam and Adrienne's bed before going. Jack gave him an appreciative nod and closed the curtains off completely.

"What's going on?" she asked sweetly and tired. "Where am I?"

Jack reached for her hand atop her stomach. "Home. Well, the SGC."

"Hmm. Close enough. What happened?" she asked.

"You collapsed."

"How bad has it gotten?"

"You've got two months," he said reluctantly, looking away from her saddening eyes.

She didn't take it too hard. She looked away as well but when she returned to his deep glance, her eyes were calm. They had no fear, something he admired more than anything.

"It was… nice. For as long as we…" she began.

But he interrupted. "I'm going to find you a cure. I'm going to get a symbiote."

She scoffed lightly. "Really? Does Hammond know of your little escapade? No, you never had any intention of telling him, did you?"

"No."

"Jack, I don't want you to go. You could get ki-"

"I'm going, Sam. If there's a chance, I'm there."

"Then will you let Frasier come up with something first?"

"They're stumped! They have no clue what the hell's doing this to you! Your immune system is attacking itself. It's not lupus or a cardiac infection, or cancer. We know the symbiote can help, Sam, whatever it is."

"No we don't! For all we know, you could be getting yourself killed for no absolute reason."

"Let me ask you something. If our situations were reversed…"

"Fine. I see your point. But sir-"

"Sir? You haven't called me sir since the Prometheus."

"Well it's an expression… isn't it?"

He smiled, remembering old missions. She drew him in by the collar and kissed him. It was not sweet and gentle and kind. It was goodbye. And she was ready to accept that.

"I'll come back, ok? Wait for me. Just wait for me."

She let a tear escape. "I've waited this long. What's a few more days? Besides, you still owe me that fishing trip, mister."

He smiled at her again and wiped her tear away with a caressing hand and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead, then got up and out of the infirmary without looking back.

Sam hid her face in her hands and tried to muffle the tears, but she knew all too well that she might never see him again.

Beside her, Adrienne stared at the roof, trying desperately not to cry herself, not to make a sound… not to pry into a mind in that state. But the sobs reached her and she closed her eyes and turned away until Sam cried herself to sleep.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Tell me something, T. Why would 'Mother' send Adrienne here if she didn't want her to interfere with history?" Jack asked as he and the Jaffa walked side by side through the empty streets of Chulak.

Teal'c pondered it for a moment then responded, "Perhaps she wanted to hide Ree, thus saving her from an ill fate."

"Sounds like a Greek tragedy."

"How so, O'Neill?"

"It's ridiculously ironic. The mother sends the daughter someplace she'd be safe only to die herself because of it and take her daughter along with her. At the same time, she takes her away from the person she loves only for the daughter to go searching for him in the past, where upon finding him, he's a midget."

Teal'c stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Indeed," he said and continued walking. "I believe it is more ridiculous than ironic, O'Neill. Why would Major Carter send Ree back in time if she had no intention of changing the past? Surely she would know things would change. She must have considered it an acceptable risk or necessary to change their fate. The true question is: Is Ree's mission of her own accord or does it comply with 'Mother's' original plan?"

"Right... so you mean did Mother want Ree to kill whoever's going to betray the SGC or is that just Adrienne's interpretation?"

"Correct."

"Huh," Jack said, lost in confusing thought.

"What is it, O'Neill?"

"Why are there no people?" Jack asked, stopping in the middle of the street and looked around cautiously.

"Chulak is often abandoned at this time for celebrations or religious gatherings."

They passed some broken pottery and Teal'c lifted his P-90 in alert. "What's up?" Jack asked.

Teal'c didn't respond but signaled that they were not alone. Jack raised his gun too and began to point around, checking in-between market carts and huts. There was no one. Not a soul.

The colonel and the Jaffa looked at each other, puzzled. They met up in the center of the street.

"What do you hear, T?"

Teal'c shushed him and pointed his P-90 towards the path leading to a hill at the end of the road.

"Shal kek nem ron!" a voice came from afar.

"We too die free! It is Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill of the Tau'ri. Identify yourselves, brothers!" Teal'c yelled out into the empty street.

Then heavy metal footsteps could be heard in the distance and before he knew it, Jack had a knife to his throat. When his assailant turned him around, he found himself face to face with Master Bra'tac. Jack looked down and saw his hand extended. Jack shook it enthusiastically.

"Damn it, Bray, it's good to see you."

"Tek matte, Master Bra'tac," Teal'c greeted his mentor.

"Tek matte, Teal'c," he responded. He gave a small signal with his hand and a dozen or so soldiers came out from inconspicuous little hiding places.

"What has transpired?" the Jaffa asked, finding himself surrounded by friends.

"We began to clear this section of the city after a small plague. We took it as a strategic stronghold because of its proximity to the Chappa'ai," a Jaffa behind Bra'tac answered.

"A plague!" Jack yelled. "I don't have a symbiote backing me up here guys. How bad was it?"

"Worry not, O'Neill. It is not airborne and none of the Jaffa here have it," Bra'tac assured.

"Right…" Jack said, imitating Austin Powers, and moved back a step from the Jaffa. They all looked at him like he was nuts. "We need your help," Jack continued seriously after he cleared his throat.

"Our help? How may we serve you, O'Neill?"

Jack smiled at Bra'tac's eagerness to help and reluctantly began, "Major Carter's dying…"

After Bra'tac had heard the whole story, he looked at Jack then at Teal'c then back at Jack and back at Teal'c. "You condone his choice, Teal'c?"

"I do, if it may save Major Carter's life."

"Even if it takes the life of a fellow Jaffa?"

Teal'c bowed his head in agreement. Jack knew he really didn't and put a hand on the Jaffa's large shoulder in appreciative acknowledgement.

The Master looked back at his soldiers then back at Jack and Teal'c. "I cannot sacrifice any of my men from this post, but I will accompany you. In fact, I know of just the place to find you a viable candidate."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel went to get Ree some food for when she woke up but when he returned to the infirmary, pie in hand, he found her bed empty.

"Not again," he whispered to himself, but Sam heard him from behind the curtain.

"Daniel is that you?" she asked. He pushed the curtain aside and there was Adrienne sitting on the edge of Sam's bed.

Ree smiled at him then looked down at the piece of pie in his hand. "That for me?"

"Yeah. Good to see you up, Sam," he said, handing it to Ree and walking to the other side of the bed to give Sam a kiss on the forehead and a welcoming smile.

"Hmm. The alarms woke her up," Sam said regarding Adrienne. "They leave ok?"

"Yeah, I hear they put a gun to Walter's head," Daniel said with a silly smile.

"Ah he'll get used to it," Adrienne said to herself, though Sam and Daniel looked at her with raised eyebrows. She just took a big bite of pie and smiled brightly and innocently. Daniel scoffed. He smirked but didn't feel like smiling back. He didn't feel like looking at her either. Her honey-green eyes startled him still. She was not the girl he'd met 2 months ago.

"So what do we do?" Sam asked. "I feel so helpless here."

"We have to protect the home front. Don't forget. This place is going to be attacked a total of approximately 23 times in the next month," Adrienne divulged, too easily for Sam's comfort. It was as if all the attacks didn't matter because she knew it wasn't the one she was waiting for.

"You know, that's extremely disconcerting," Daniel said.

"Do you think they'll be that long?" Sam asked, looking to Ree.

"I honestly don't know."

"Hasn't this already happened?"

"No actually. It never did before."

"How can that be?" Daniel asked.

"They never left where I came from… You died," she said looking at Sam with those calm unnerving eyes. Sam took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Sometimes, that's what it takes."

"For what? How could her death possibly be a good thing?" Daniel asked with deep exasperation.

"Because otherwise, I'm never made."

"Well you're just _full_ of little surprises, aren't you?" Daniel yelled heatedly, his arms waving above his head like a maniac.

"Calm down, Daniel," Sam said, then looked at Ree. "It's what allows you to heal yourself enough for the enhancements to be put in isn't it? I Ascend."

Adrienne nodded with a remorseful look and Daniel closed his eyes, his hands tense by his side. She reached over and put her hand over his fist. He calmed down as all three tried to avoid thinking of all that had been done to what was once such an innocent little child.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TEN:**

--What's killing Sam!

--Where are Jack and Teal'c going?

--When are going to learn more about _who_ does these enhancements on Ree?

--How long will it be before Jack and Teal'c return?

--When are we going to find out Adrienne's true mission?

--What of Dionysus and Daniel? Who will win Adrienne?

--And finally… What would you say if I told you Daniel and Adrienne are _never_ getting together?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:**

_I would like to thank the following people for their comments and true fandom. It has made writing this story something truly… amusing, if not lovely. _

_--Grace "AriadneInLove"_

**For keeping up with the adventures of a wily little soldier:**

001ElvenWarrior (for such analytical plot talks), Anaika Skywalker, drey'auc475, fancymemad, Grub5000 SJ Fan, jessie06star (for never-ending Sam questions), katy1986, Matts-Girl1, meowx2, Moonrays and fridays, NadineCarter, roseofthegate, scottiedog, sea2209, selache51, Spamurai, stargazzr2, StupidMajor, tere, tmcccjc, Tony the jew, trtlsoup2001 (for not speculating on the story), and Zsych (for such enthusiastic reviews).

**And thanks to the following groups:**

_The Best of Sam & Jack_ and _Good Grace_, for adding me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**


	10. Grave Revelations

"**Level 28"**

**---By AriadneInLove---**

_This is by far one of the most emotional, tragic, and deeply disturbing chapters of the entire story. If you're trying to figure out what's going to happen, don't bother. It will be nothing like you expected. This I promise. And don't think that because most of the mystery is revealed in this chapter, we're anywhere near the end. It changes from here on out, and if you dare, you're welcome to share the ride alongside me till the end._

------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART TEN: **_Grave Revelations_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Master Bra'tac said adieu to his small group of rebels and began his way up the hill alongside Jack and Teal'c.

"So where are we going, exactly?" Jack asked halfway to the hill after an hour of silence.

"The Red Hills, O'Neill," Teal'c answered.

Bra'tac looked around cautiously then elaborated, "There is an army of Terrebelan Jaffa just below those hills. They had hoped to take over Chulak but were abandoned after a shameful defeat. Many are injured beyond healing but their symbiotes remain intact. We may find no need for killing."

"Well that's just excellent," Jack said sarcastically, not even bothering with fake enthusiasm.

"Never is death excellent, O'Neill," Bra'tac said wisely.

"You know, when we get back, I'm getting you acquainted with a friend of mine. She's yellow and 8 years old. Her name's Lisa. You'd get along _swell_."

Both Teal'c and Bra'tac raised an eyebrow questioningly but continued on the path anyway. Jack had strayed behind, his mind drifting back to the SGC, his eyes focusing on the clay-ridden ground.

He thought of Sam and Adrienne and the short time they'd spent together. He remembered his late-night talks with Adrienne at the peak of Cheyenne Mountain, watching the stars. She said she could feel them moving, dancing. It was calming. He had tried to sneak in questions of the future but she refused to answer and just circumvented to wise rhetorical questions of the universe.

"Who taught you this stuff? It sounds like something out of the Oma Desala handbook," he'd asked. She only smiled and winked, and they spoke of it no further.

The time he had spent with Sam was different. There were moments where everything was perfect. There was no more strange awkwardness. It was as if lifelong friends had finally come to terms with each other's presence and it was so quiet from then on. Simple mutual comfort. It brought a smile to his face even as he looked at the blood-stained earth.

"O'Neill!" he heard Teal'c yell from ahead but it was too late.

Their prey was upon them.

Jack felt a darkness overtake him and looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood, leaking from a fiery hole in his stomach. He looked up with blank eyes and saw Teal'c and Bra'tac running towards him in what seemed like slow motion.

There was yelling in the distance but he couldn't quite make it out. Then there was true darkness and the world melded onto itself. And he saw Sam, smiling at him through the darkness with welcoming blue eyes.

He followed them into the abyss.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne awoke in her room, cold sweat making the standard issue linen of the SGC stick to her like peanut butter. That's when she realized she was hungry. She tried to think of the last time she ate but it had been with Jack and that told her it had been _much_ too long.

Three days had already passed and they weren't back, which didn't surprise her. There were times when she had been lost for months and no one had come to rescue her. She'd gotten back alright. Surely they would too. She hoped. She wished. She _prayed_, something she would have never thought she'd ever do in a million years.

Sam had caught her knelt down beside her bed once and she knelt down beside her. Adrienne was sure she saw a tear but it could have been her imagination.

A week after Jack had left, Sam went to get up from the infirmary bed to go to a mission briefing with SG-3 when she collapsed on the ground again. She'd lost all feeling in her legs. Daniel was freaking out but she only took it with remorse. There were so many things she'd wanted to do but she'd come to terms with never walking again.

Adrienne didn't like how calm Sam was being about everything. Sam had always been tough but she was in a permanent state of denial. In the back of her mind, she refused to lose trust in Jack. He'd come back to her. He had to, Adrienne knew. She couldn't deal with Sam breaking down right now, not when she wished she could break down herself.

No one knew how much Adrienne hurt. Dionysus was getting older by the day. He was in his late teens now. Soon, he would be equal to Adrienne and Daniel would be out of the picture. She wasn't sure if that's what she wanted but she had to fulfill her mission and for that, Dionysus had to be of age.

No one knew how useless Daniel felt. He'd spend days without end researching the old legends on Dionysus and Ariadne and the labyrinth but all he found was hopeless folklore and annoying little chorus songs in their honor. As far as he knew, no Goa'uld had ever taken the persona of either one and it was slightly puzzling to him. With all that Dionysus showed up in Greek tales, one would think that an ego-hungry conqueror would take up name. But it seemed he had been an invention of imaginations, until now.

Then he found the proof in an Ancient plate they'd found along with the tablet telling of the Lost City. They had different origins and it wasn't even written in Ancient so he disregarded it at first. Now, after nonstop days of research, he found a word -- a single word -- that jumped out at him: Zagreus.

He hadn't been looking for it but when he found it, it seemed like the world of puzzle pieces just turned themselves over and another landscape surfaced. He picked up the pictures of the plate and his notes and some books and bit down on his pen before running like hell to the infirmary.

Adrienne sat with Sam, just talking, when Daniel came running in with bated breath. Sam looked slightly scared by his lack of composure. Adrienne just laughed.

"What's going on?" Sam asked expectantly. "Are they back?"

"No. Better. I found him!" Daniel exclaimed, putting his papers and books down on the empty bed beside them and shifted about. "See, I'd been looking through late Greek literature for references to Dionysus in relation to common Ancient activity or possibly relative behavior. But his name meant nothing… until I found this."

He handed them a specific picture of a section of the 3-foot high ceramic plate where he'd circled three little symbols.

"Zagreus," he said joyously. "His name was Zagreus after the second birth. According to mythology, he was born twice. First as Dionysus and later as Zagreus, which might relate to his Ascension and return to physical form. Then the section makes various references to his heart which was implanted in Semele and from _there_ he was reborn."

Adrienne was smiling. Sam was still in slight shock. He looked to Ree but she was extremely intent on not looking back. She looked at the picture of the plate with what seemed like nostalgia. She was trying desperately not to cry but it was pointless.

A tear fell on the photo, which she apologized for and handed it back to him. She got up off the bed and ran out of the infirmary. Sam looked at Daniel who excused himself to go after her. Sam nodded in acknowledgement. She was so glad he left. She didn't want him to see her cry too but the pain was getting to be too much.

In two days, she'd be blind.

When Daniel reached Adrienne outside the infirmary, she just slid down with her back to the wall and was now intent on hugging her knees till it hurt. She wasn't crying anymore but her gaze seemed focused on a fascinating spot of gray wall across the hall.

"Hey," he said, standing over her. "You ok?"

The entire hall was empty so he decided it couldn't hurt to sit beside her in the middle of a top-secret military facility hallway.

She looked at him, sniffed, and went back to her gazing. "You're getting closer Daniel but you're not quite there."

"I am, huh? Well I'm not really worried about that right now. I'm worried about _you_."

She rested her chin on her right arm as she looked him over. He sat down beside her. "You always were so kind. I'm so sorry, Daniel. I never meant to-"

The alarms cut her off. "Unauthorized off-world activation!" Walter yelled over the speakers. Armed airmen ran past them but Daniel couldn't stop looking at her in her vulnerable state. She seemed so innocent, so fragile. It was freaking him out but he didn't move. It was the closest he'd felt to her since their little escapade in the vents.

He no longer wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her but his jealousy and desire subsided. And that's when he realized it.

"What have you been doing to me?" he asked, slightly afraid.

She smirked. "Smart one, eh?"

"So you have been doing something to me!"

"Not intentionally, but we do share a common signal that's been screwing you up probably."

"A signal?"

"We were both once Ascended. It's the signal that draws me to Dionysus, and Sam to Orlin."

"Orlin? When did _he_ come into all of this?"

"Why do you think he was so drawn to Sam? He knew she was going to die, Danny, just like we both know."

"Do you want her to?"

"No. If she never dies, she'll never bring back the address."

Daniel looked at her as if telling her to go on. He was intrigued. She was opening up, telling him the truth. He felt even closer to her.

She continued, "When Sam returns from Ascension, she'll bring with her a code given by the Ancients telling her of Dionysus' whereabouts. It's how you find him, even though the address was never charted by your computers. That's how Sam gets her hands on non-mutagenic, fast-healing DNA for her little science project - yours truly - and how I meet Dionysus. It's funny. After I rescue him from the rogues, he actually told me we were destined to meet."

"Weren't you?"

She half-scoffed, half-laughed. "He used me, Daniel. He used all of us… He's not human."

"Well neither are you really. Neither am I since I technically died."

"You don't get it. He's not an Ancient either."

Then it hit him. "He's who makes you kill all those people, isn't he?"

She nodded quickly, looking away. "I have to kill him now, Daniel, before he realizes what he is." She paused and went back to looking at the spot of gray on the wall. "Disgusting part? He's been waiting for me for _centuries_. I actually found that romantic before. Now it… it makes me sick."

"What are you waiting for?"

"I can't kill him as a child, Daniel. I just can't."

"So you're making him grow?"

She nodded again, her gaze still away. "Even if it kills me, I'm taking him with me."

"But you love him."

"More than anything."

"Does he know what he's going to do?"

"Nope. Not that I can tell anyway."

"Then there's a chance! You can still change history. Change _him_ before he uses you."

"It's too late. It's too late for all of us. Now it all rests on Jack and Teal'c." Daniel raised an eyebrow and she quickly explained. "If they save her now, she'll never be able to give birth to me and I won't have to kill him."

"But you'll never be born!"

"I can't hurt anyone if I never existed."

"They'll still use him, you know. They can get his DNA and make an army of people like you."

"No… They'd have an army of fetuses. Only Sam can give birth to viable soldiers. The protein marker left in her blood from her incident with Jolinar is crucial to the development and adaptation of the Ariadne Project's 'enhancements'."

"The Ariadne Project? They bred you to… be his _mate_?"

"I was bred to be a tool of destruction," she said and began to stand up. He followed suit and for a moment, they looked straight at each other with complete mutual understanding and audacity. There was pity in his eyes but she ignored it, not that she knew what that meant.

"We can change the world, Ree. Just you and me. We can do this and you'll never have to live through this again."

"Oh don't worry. I have no intention of staying around when the world wakes up and finds out it's a pawn in a game of chess with only black pieces."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART ELEVEN:**

_From now on, no more questions. Only answers._

--Jack and Teal'c return to the SGC just in time to save Sam's life.

--Dionysus realizes what he is and what he's supposed to do.

--Daniel and Adrienne try to stop him.

--Bra'tac gets caught in the crossfire.

--Sam gets taken over by the Goa'uld.

--Sam never gets her midnight stroll.

--But she does get a child. Before this story ends, both Adrienne and Sam will be pregnant… but only one will give birth.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**


	11. Endless Night

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**PART ELEVEN: **_Endless Night_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**Two weeks after they arrived on Chulak…**

Teal'c entered the slave tent with exhaustion easily visible in his eyes. In every shade of purple in his ever bruise and every welt, there was pain hidden. He was alone now. Bra'tac, he knew, was alive but it had been 5 days since he last saw him. He might as well have been alone.

He lied down on the firm dirt that made his floor, his bed, his life from now on. He knew there was no escape from this but he didn't lose hope. Then he came back from his labors and found Jack had passed on while he was away. His hope died with his friend.

He thought back to that day. 12 days ago, and still no time to mourn. Jack had been hit with what seemed like a staff blast. He'd called for him but it was already too late. They had aimed for him, _especially_ at him. There was nothing they could do. Before a single weapon could be raised, they were surrounded by enemy Jaffa.

He had surrendered only to save O'Neill. Had they fought, they might have escaped but Jack's body would have been left behind. It did him no good. After they took the three to the slave camp, Jack shortly bled to death. He'd made him promise to save Sam, save themselves.

"Tell her… Tell her I'm sorry I wasted so much time…" Jack had whispered moments before his body gave way, choking on his own blood.

Their captors had dragged his body away like he was garbage, leaving Teal'c to ponder of the mistakes of his past… the things left unsaid, the errors left uncorrected… the drifting thoughts of a man with nothing left to live for.

They weren't even on Chulak anymore. No one knew where they were. No one would come after a pair of suicidal fugitives.

A voice called his name from the entrance to the tent and for a moment he thought it was Jack but the moment went away. "Master Bra'tac!" he yelled gleefully when he saw the tattered old man before him. He quickly got up to greet him.

"They moved me to the southern mines," he said. "They do not seem to care about station."

"Do you believe as I do?"

"This mine is a front. This Goa'uld has no intention of obtaining the fruits of these workers' labor."

"It is a death camp, Teal'c. They will work us till we die…"

"Then we must escape."

"I see no way. Outside here, there is only desert for months. You saw. The Chappa'ai is reachable only by ship."

"Then we must find a ship. I still have one final message to deliver."

Bra'tac knew he meant Jack and bowed his head in agreement. When he left, Teal'c was left all alone again to his thoughts. He began to plan their way up to the palace at the top of the hill, how they could get past the guards without weapons, how they could find a ship once inside…

It had always seemed so simple with Jack there, so feasible. Now it didn't really matter whether they survived. They had no real cause. No one would miss him, he thought. His son had grown up practically without him. His wife, dead. His mentor, soon to join her. And for a moment, he wished he could join them too.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne ran through the corridors of Level 28 in her dreams, a trail of blood following her. Even as she walked them through the day, she saw the blood everywhere.

They had isolated Dionysus in his own quarantine room. He looked around 20 now, nearly a full man. Adrienne had stopped growing around her mid-20s so they feared he'd be at full power soon, even if they had no idea what that meant. Daniel had kept the truth to himself about Adrienne's involvement in the killings, and with Dionysus but that was more for his own self-denial.

He and Ree would sit in the control room every night, every chance they got really, with a cup of coffee and their feet propped up on the consoles. It would be quiet sometimes. Others, she would tell him tales of growing up in the base and with Mother, nothing too crucial to time but the dearest of her memories.

"It's always the simple things we treasure, you know. Like Washington DC in the winter or sitting on the dock at Dad's cabin and looking out into nowhere. It's the thoughts we think and the way we feel at certain times because of certain things. 20/20 hindsight is the foundation of appreciation… and regret," she'd told him one day in May.

Sam's birthday had already passed but no one celebrated anything. Without SG-1 and without regular operations for off-world teams, the SGC seemed dead. Everyone knew of Sam's illness and they'd all given up hope. Daniel would walk through the hallways and hear people speaking of her as if she was already dead. It hurt him to admit that sometimes he thought like that as well.

Since she slept most of the day thanks to her pain medications, he would come and sit by her with his papers and it was a much kinder quiet than in his stuffy office. Adrienne fell asleep on the bed next to Sam and even though they thought she slept, Sam could feel their presence there and a smile came to her through every shuffling of papers or covers.

It was extremely comforting.

"How do you measure time, Daniel?" she asked, her feet resting atop the console and a mug of java firmly in her hands as she snuggled close.

"As we all do."

"I'm not 'we'. I'm not one of you. _How do you measure time_?" she insisted.

"Ree, you _are_ one of us. You just never admitted it to yourself."

"You, perhaps. You are no longer truly human yourself. But I was never to begin with."

"What does this have to do with how we measure time?"

"I don't measure it. I see it."

"I wondered that… how you see, I mean. One of your advancements?"

"You wonder about _all_ of them."

"Will you enlighten me, then?"

She sighed and began, "I have 9 senses. The five basics – all numbed or enhanced – and 4 others that let me use those senses to see other worlds. I see time, taste emotion, dance with the dead, and move through the borders of existence."

"Very poetic, but what does it mean."

"Exactly what I said. It's not poetic, dear. It's what I do when people aren't looking and what I see when people don't."

"See I always figured your private life involved whips and some form of leather handcuffs and nighties… not dead people and- and time and emotions. Come on! Dish out the goods. What can you do?" he joked with a funny face.

She laughed. But didn't answer.

The nights would go on like this, him taunting the answers out of her with extreme charm and her scoffing off his lame attempts.

And then Adrienne would awaken in tremors and screams. Every night, like clockwork.

"Ree! Wake up! You're just dreaming!" Daniel would shake her awake but she would try to deny their existence.

One night, Ree refused to wake up and Daniel was getting worried. He thought he'd let her sleep until she started to scream but it was hours and she still hadn't woken up. He poked her to see if she was still alive and she said distantly as in the daze of the dreaming, "Oh why must I be so voluptuous?"

He laughed and returned to his papers now spread over the consoles. He'd found more on Dionysus. Not a lot of it was good, so he kept it to himself. Somehow he figured she knew.

She turned in her sleep, her knee moving up and down as if she wished to run away in real life as well. He went to hold her hand, wake her up before she began to scream but she refused to wake.

Hours later, she still not woke. Daniel worried but as long as she was moving and twitching erratically, she was still alive. The technicians came back to their stations and found them still there. Daniel asked to stay and they reluctantly went off for a long coffee break.

Another hour later, she was still asleep. He got up and tried to wake her as people started to busily disperse around them but nothing, so he got desperate and carried her through the crowds of scattered souls of the hallways and back to her room. But he was still not satisfied.

So he ran down to the infirmary and tried to find Janet.

"Janet! Janet, please. I need your help," he pleaded, slightly out of breath.

"Oh God, Daniel what is it now?" she responded with a tired and annoyed tone.

"It's--"

"Let me guess. Adrienne?" she interrupted.

"Yes! She won't wake up!" Suddenly he realized how ridiculous he sounded at first.

"Is she breathing?" Janet said, still disregarding the situation a bit.

"Yea and she's moving around a bit but she won't wake up," he said as he followed her around as she checked on all the other patients.

And then they got to Sam's and Janet still didn't take the situation seriously. But she looked over at her friend lying immobile on the bed. Daniel noticed the melancholy look on the good doctor's face and he realized what she meant.

"You're right…" he said. "There are more important things to do. But please. She's been waking up every night in tremors and she's been having nightmares and now I'm scared, Janet. Please… for me."

She wasn't sure what had struck her most: Knowing that a patient was sick but choosing not to do anything about it, that Daniel knew her nightly activities, or that this woman was taking away all that she ever cared about. She was ruining everything. If she hadn't come, Sam would out on some mission, Jack wouldn't have run off with Teal'c on a suicidal crusade, and Daniel… well she refused to admit how she felt about Daniel.

"Alright. For you."

Adrienne was in a cold sweat on her bed in her dark, dark room, curled up sheet-less, when they arrived. Janet had brought along two nurses who began to stretch out her body face up on the bed.

"Is she going to be all right?" Daniel asked, standing helpless by the foot of the bed.

Janet checked Adrienne's eyes with a penlight but they were unresponsive. "Daniel, I don't know what to do. I don't think there's anything I _can_ do. I can't sedate her. I can't run any blood tests. I can't…"

"I get it," he said. "If you had some more of her blood, do you think you'd be able to figure out what's wrong with her?"

"Maybe but I wouldn't even know what to look for. We don't even know if this isn't supposed to happen. It could just as well be a natural part of her growth or sleep cycle or…"

Daniel closed his eyes and turned away, his arms crossed. Janet felt his pain and his helplessness but mostly she felt the guilt of knowing even if she could, she wouldn't. She could not abide a murderer in her infirmary. For this what she saw: a murderer. After all, Sam wasn't sick before she came, of that she made sure. And Ree was taking her best friend with her down the rabbit hole, leaving her alone to wander through the lost gardens of redemption and solitude.

She was taking Daniel. She was taking the people she took so much pride in caring for. She was taking Janet's life with her. And no one seemed to care.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And so they dreamed:

"_Sam? Mother, is that you?"_

"_Adrienne? What are you doing here?" Sam asked. _

_Ree looked around. They were in Sam's house, a dark distorted version of it. She recognized the yellow kitchen, even though she knew she didn't paint it yellow until years later. She realized she was in Sam's dream home, her haven. _

"_Mom, you're sick. You have to fight it. Please!"_

"_I'm sick? Don't be silly, Ree. I'm fine, can't you tell?"_

"_We're in your head, Sam. None of this is real. You have to snap out of it."_

_Sam moved away from her. She started looking around and saw what she meant. _

"_Can't you tell?" Ree continued. "This is all a lie, Sam. You don't live here!"_

"_But I have to wait for him!" she yelled out with a slightly frantic tone. _

_Ree stood stunned. "Wait for who?" she asked._

"_It's whom," Sam corrected. Ree smiled. It was one of Jack's favorite traits. The first time she had corrected Sam, she had begun to cry. She learned the truth of her father on that day, got a little bit closer to figuring out the kind of man he was._

"_Exactly," Sam continued at the look on her daughter's face. _

"_Sam, he's not going to find you. You have to find _him_. If you wait here, you'll die and you'll never see him again. Is that what you want?"_

"_I want _this_, Ree," she said, opening her arms to the large fantasy surrounding them. "I want him here. If I leave here, it means I'll never be able to come back. Reality is so cruel. So wrong. So unwilling to free me from this vision. Waiting for him here is the only thing that keeps me sane!" Sam was yelling. It was cruel. _

"_Sam, you've got two options: Stay here and wait hopelessly until you die alone, or come back with me and be with him. You don't have to be alone. You don't have to wait. _Damned be the world, darling_."_

_Ree saw Sam blink twice in realization and look away. A tear went down her cheek. Sam sniffed and walked over to Ree and hugged her tightly as she began to bawl uncontrollably into her daughter's imaginary shoulder. _

"_Let us go then."_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel sat beside Adrienne's bed in her dark room, his face hid in his hands. Janet had gotten a page from the infirmary and had run down without saying a word to him, leaving him with only a worried look and a rush of adrenaline.

He felt impatient. He was alone with her and while she was great company otherwise, the futility of the situation was extremely unsettling.

And then she moved. She twitched for a mere moment and then began to emit the powder-light like before. He felt its warmth as it approached him, a yellowish-pink. She moaned a bit like waking from an unstinting sleep.

And her eyes opened slowly, with the curiosity of a child.

"Daniel?" she asked, her voice slightly high-pitched. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Ree. I'm here, sweetie," he said, moving his hand atop hers.

"Ree? I'm not Ree. And who are _you_ calling sweetie?"

"What?"

"It's me, Danny. It's Sam."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

In a planet far, far away, in a castle too large to have purpose, the door of the sarcophagus slid open.

And from its comfy interior, awakened the body of a weary Air Force Colonel…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWELVE:**

_Back by popular demand, those perky little questions on plot development. _

--How is Teal'c going to escape with just him and Bra'tac to get through the guards?

--Which Goa'uld, if any, controls the slave camp?

--What did they do to Jack's body?

--Is Sam going to Ascend? Or take everyone down with her?

--Will Sleeping Beauty ever truly wake?

--Can't Dionysus help, or be helped?

--And finally… Will Sam ever get a chance to say goodbye?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**SPOILER: **_A few chapters ahead, the SGC will get taken over by a very surprising character and quite a few people die. But Jack will always be there to stop her._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**Coming soon… **

"**Lost Time" - **_What can she do when all Sam has left in the world is the unborn reminder of a lost love?_ (Sequel to "Level 28." Write me a review to get a classified summary.)


	12. Fate's Charade

_So I just found out that Season Ten of Stargate SG-1 is going to involve a new villain who is the possible daughter of Vala and Daniel… named Adria… and she's a genetically engineered Ori. Sound familiar? I swear I had no idea, and now twelve chapters into "Level 28," I honestly apologize for any seriously ironic coincidences. But, in my defense, I've been writing this for quite a while. So screw the SG-1 writers! It was my idea first! Lol. I'll try to make it crazier and more improbable, no matter how crazy I thought it was in the first place. Maybe even go a little 'shippier. You're all still my fans, no?_

**----AriadneInLove---**

_And now…_

**PART TWELVE: **_Fate's Charade_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sam?" Daniel asked, moving away so quickly that he stumbled back to the floor.

Sam sat up slowly on the edge of the bed where Daniel had once been. She looked down at her hands. They seemed so familiar, felt so much like her own, but they could never be. The pain from the cut so many months ago still lingered, the pain of so many other wounds. Some had scars. Some had scars so far below the surface that it would take years to forget.

But Sam felt them all.

She tried to get up but she couldn't move her legs quite right and fell back to the bed. Daniel still stared, scared and bewildered.

"Daniel, where am I?" she asked as if in a slight daze, unable to see him in one focus. As soon as he started to get up again, she could see dozens of blurry versions of him moving in different directions. Only the real one was clear, and he knelt down at her feet, looking up at her with tired eyes. Eyes that could take no more of these charades of Fate.

She shrieked when he spoke. His voice overlapped upon itself, over a dozen in sequence, in volumes. Though they spoke the same thing. "Sam, what happened? What are you doing in there?"

"I don't know," she whispered back.

Then a voice came into her head. _It's ok, Mom. I'm still here,_ it said. _Calm down._

"I don't know," she said again, still lost in her daze.

"Sam, I need you to focus ok? Is Ree still in there with you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Daniel… everything's… so strong, so strange."

"Yeah you must be seeing what she does. She told me it was weird… What's it like?"

Sam heard Ree scoff in her head. _Don't even try. There are no words._

"Sorry, I can't say."

"That's fine. Listen to me, ok? Ask Ree if this affects your body's status in any way," he said.

_Tell him it doesn't affect your body as long as we got you back in time,_ Ree's hollow voice sounded in her head.

Sam was slightly confused, aside from dazed. "My body's status?" And then she remembered the pain and the blindness and the darkness that drew her into that fantasy world. "Oh God, Daniel. I just- I remember… She says it doesn't affect me as long as we get me back in time. In time for what, though?"

And then Ree's voice answered reluctantly.

_Before you die. _

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c had trouble waking up from his soil bed the morning of his 30th day in captivity. He knew it would be today that he escaped, either from this enslavement or from life itself. Either way, he would die free where it truly mattered. If Bra'tac had taught him anything, it was that.

He thought of Bra'tac and of what he would do to say goodbye. His simple words would not cut it. So he thought of Jack's. "We have to save the family," he'd said as they met up at the Gate so many weeks ago before embarking on this horrid mistake.

Bra'tac didn't understand his words but he got the source. But still, all he thought about was saving himself.

By now, they had rallied the troops even though they would enter the fortress alone.

_I am always alone, from now on,_ he thought.

Bra'tac sent the signal to the other workers and they began a small riot on the southern end of the castle. The workers flocked around the warring slaves like bees to honey but the guards seemed unaffected. They didn't care if they killed each other.

But the workers were gathering near the gates to the fortress and they could hide in the crowd. None of the guards saw them kill the two standing at the southern gate.

They were inside.

The halls were the color of silver, the luster of metal, and the texture of stone. There were no guards, anywhere. They walked calmly through, always on the lookout for unexpected surprises. Those were the ones that got them.

And just as they turned the corner, it got them. Teal'c and Bra'tac stood face to face with six unmarked Jaffa, guarding what seemed like a large black wall.

The Jaffa immediately pointed their staff weapons to the intruders' hearts but for Teal'c, he had little heart left. So he swung the staff he'd taken from the front guards and knocked out two of the six staffs upon them. Bra'tac quickly followed his heed and attacked the staffs with all he could.

Fire and blood flew through the air as if life stood for everyone else. And one Jaffa too many lost his life.

Teal'c was joyous in his conquest. He had taken down all the guards stealthily and cleanly. He would not be expecting more surprises. But then he turned to Bra'tac, and there was no one behind him.

He looked around at the bodies and saw his limp one up against the strange walls of the fortress.

"Master! Master Bra'tac, are you injured?" he asked foolishly, clearly seeing the enormous stain of blood on the old man chest and hoping it came from the other soldiers. But he was not that lucky.

The old man gave him one final look, almost that of a fearful soul grasping for life, dangling for the coveted immortality Teal'c had grown accustomed to from him. He was invulnerable, like Jack. And now both were dead. Just like that. Bra'tac's dead hand thudded to the smooth and cold surface that was his grave.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Major Carter?" Hammond asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah sir, I'm here," she responded.

"But how can that--"

"Don't even ask sir. Ree always said we had a connection. I guess she was serious."

"Is she still in there?"

"Oh yah. I just don't think she can come out. I think this is due to the Goa'uld part of her DNA. It could be causing this, for all we know."

Then the voice came back suddenly in Sam's head. _No, it's not the Goa'uld. It's the Ancient in me._

_What?_ Sam's mind asked back.

_Ask Daniel if he saw Oma Desala before he died, she said._

Sam looked up at Daniel who was keen on looking over Frasier's clipboard. "Uh, she wants to know if you saw Oma before you died."

He raised an eyebrow too. "Yeah, I did. She was the one that helped me Ascend."

"Then it's her Ancient genes that are doing it. It can't be the Goa'uld in her."

Suddenly, Janet threw the clipboard on the bed beside where Sam was sitting as she stormed out of the infirmary. Everyone knew it was because of this. No one thought it was because of Daniel. Not even him, with his sharpened senses when it came to his friends' feelings. He couldn't sense this.

So he went after her, excusing himself and patting Sam's shoulder slightly.

"Janet!" he yelled out a few steps from the infirmary door. "Hold on!"

"No Daniel. I'm tired of this. All of this," she said surprisingly calmly, still quickly storming away from her usual sanctuary. "I quit!"

Daniel stopped in mid-step and caught her arm so she'd stop too. She pulled away from him with a teary face. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say Daniel. I'm gone."

"No, damn it! I already lost Sam, Jack, and Teal'c. I'm not losing _you_! Tell me what's going on with you. You don't talk to me anymore unless you're yelling. What happened to the light in your eyes, Janet?" he gave up trying to stop her and began to focus on what he'd missed all this time

"What about Adrienne? You lose her too? 'Cause Sam's not dead yet and Jack and Teal'c are only missing. Adrienne's the only one you've lost. And to a teenager of all things."

There was resentment in her tone. Jealousy really but he was too dense to realize that.

"What does this have to do with Adrienne?"

"Everything, Daniel. Absolutely everything and everyone."

Daniel didn't respond right away. He just looked down at her, his hand still holding her from leaving. That's when he got it. It hit him like a hammer over the head.

"Janet… I--"

"Don't bother."

"No!" he yelled, tightening his grip as she went to pull away.

And he put his other hand on her waist and pulled her into his lips.

And they kissed.

When he parted, she stood frozen, eyes still closed and lips puckered in midair. She blinked twice and stared through his glasses to his blue eyes. What did they say, she thought.

"Uh… Daniel… what was that?"

"A pleading for forgiveness."

"Forgive me… for ignoring you, for not noticing, for being an idiot… for everything."

She looked away slowly and he tried to follow her gaze but it was now to the wall beside her. He let her go and she turned away, no longer storming out but walking out nonetheless.

He walked back to the infirmary a beaten man. Adrienne was a far away memory. For that moment when he kissed her, all he could think of was the feel of her lips against his and the calmness that overwhelmed him, making him drop his grip.

But she was gone now, this presence. Janet.

_She must have not felt the same_, he thought in the darker corners of her mind. But he knew she had.

She had gone because as long as Adrienne still walked these halls, she knew she would always be second. Not because Daniel loved her more, because he didn't, and not because he was obsessed, because he wasn't, but because he had to save her. Who else would with her parents gone? No one else cared about her. She was alone too. Just like him.

And then there was the pulse, the thing that beat through his blood and told him to care for her. It was chemistry, not love. He could never go there again. But he knew Janet was right. If he had the chance, if he could be with Adrienne how he felt his body yearn he was, he would in an instance.

But he would always be thinking of Janet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART THIRTEEN:**

--Is Bra'tac really dead?

--Where's Jack, if he really is alive?

--What is this connection with Daniel and Adrienne, this physical desire?

--Where will it lead? o.O

--What does Ree want Sam to do while she's in her body?

--When's Teal'c getting back?

--How long does Sam have before her Awakening?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**Coming soon… **

"**Lost Time" - **_What can she do when all Sam has left in the world is the unborn reminder of a lost love?_ (Sequel to "Level 28." Write me a review to get a classified summary.)


	13. Shadow Man

"Level 28"

**----AriadneInLove---**

_And now…_

**PART THIRTEEN: **_Shadow Man_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c made way to the door that taken his friend's life. It seemed pointless now. He should have let them take them and they might have escaped later. But no. His pompous nature had to prove him strong. He had to beat them. And now Bra'tac was dead, with no soldier's goodbye, his body lost to the enemy.

But he walked through that door nonetheless. He had to see what he had killed for.

And there he was. Jack O'Neill in all his glory…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel came back into the infirmary after a small goodbye to Janet.

"What's wrong? Where's Janet?" Sam asked, looking at him as if he were literally see-through. And then she felt it, the kiss. She brought a gentle hand to her lips and gave a simple, "Oh."

Hammond looked back and forth from Daniel's forlorn look to Sam's struck, dazed gaze.

"She's gone," Daniel responded.

"What are you doing here, then!" Sam yelled, annoyed even. "Go after her, damn you!"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because it's too late. I tried and she-"

Sam interrupted, "No you haven't. You pushed yourself on her and expected it to mean something."

"Hey! Actions speak louder than words."

"Yeah and yours told her you were a horny sonovabitch. Now go find her, you moron!"

Daniel blinked twice, not understanding Sam's outburst. Especially when it came from Ree's body.

"We need her, ok? _You_ need her. Ree's not going to be there for you the way Janet is. Believe me, she can't be."

_You can see where she's going to be. Close your eyes and think of her,_ Ree said.

Sam nodded to thin air and closed her eyes. Daniel looked at her weird. What was she nodding about?

"Major, what's wrong?" Hammond asked, coming to touch her awake. But she moved away quickly. When she opened her eyes, she saw the world in shades of blue endlessly fast. Daniel and Hammond were already gone and nurses moved about like a tape on fast-forward, leaving behind a trail of yellow streams of light like a picture of the highway.

The yellow seemed to overlap and soon her vision was becoming smeared. So she ran, jumping off the bed and running off through the hallways of yellow streams.

_It's too fast!_ she thought to herself in great distress, quickly becoming tired and nauseous.

_Concentrate and slow it down. Rewind it all_, Ree's voice instructed.

Sam took a slow step back and the yellow streams receded. There was Janet and Daniel in the hallway, his hand clutching her arm roughly atop the white lab coat. She went to them slowly but everything was blurry. She couldn't touch them, move them away from each other, nothing.

So she sped them up and saw Janet go off through hall. She followed her to the parking lot, fearing the worst. Then for a moment, Janet stopped and looked straight at her and saw right through her.

_Can she see me?_

_No_, Ree responded. _Their eyes aren't like ours._

And then they came. Two cars waited two minutes for her to leave and went after her.

_That look suspicious to you?_ Sam asked her mental companion.

_Go back, back to your own time. Tell Daniel to find her. You have to stay behind. _

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c took a deep breath and walked through the threshold into the golden room. Jack lay on a stone slab in the far end of the room. In the middle, there was a ring platform surrounded by chairs with red plush seats. It was a meeting room, fully equipped with a shiny new sarcophagus.

"O'Neill!" he yelled and ran around the chairs to the stone slab, thinking of the sarcophagus. Maybe he could bring him back.

But Jack was already alive, and breathing, he clearly saw. He tired to wake him up but he couldn't shake him out of his deep sleep. That's when he heard the approaching march of metal boots. Super soldiers.

When Teal'c looked back down at his friend, he found himself face to face with a pair of shining golden eyes. He stumbled back and pointed his staff but the Goa'uld already had his hand weapon raised and pointed to the Jaffa's head.

He was cornered. Anubis' soldiers were coming up behind him. Jack had been taken over and was about to kill him right before his eyes. He couldn't turn around or Jack would get him, so he couldn't run away. He merely stepped back slowly and the Goa'uld followed, poised to attack.

"Who are you?" Teal'c asked.

"Don't you recognize me, Teal'c?" it said in its deep hollow voice. "Don't you recognize an old friend?"

Teal'c's eyes opened wide in horror as a dark shadow cast over Jack's body… a shadow that covered him like a hood.

"Anubis…" Teal'c whispered as the figure came upon him, the shadow penetrating him.

He struggled about, blinded. Then a light overwhelmed the shadow and Jack was taken aback. Teal'c looked down to the shadow man's hand. The Goa'uld hand device that controlled the rings had been slammed against the floor and the rings had activated.

When they were brought down again, the shadow had not followed and Jack was back.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c yelled, not bothering to look around at the ominous surroundings.

Jack opened his eyes, removing reluctantly the hands that covered his face from the hurtful light. They were brown again, the loveliest brown Teal'c had ever seen. A thankful sigh came over him. He was sure. There no Goa'uld in him, that he could sense anyways.

"What happened? Where are we? Where's Bra'tac?" Jack asked frantically.

And the thought of Bra'tac came over him. He was about to answer when Jack extended a hand to help him off the grass.

Grass. They were outside? Both looked around puzzled. They were right in front of the Stargate. But Teal'c hadn't remembered grass around the Stargate he'd been taken through from Chulak. In fact, he remembered a red desert that had no end and entering a ship that led them to the slave camp.

They had been ringed to another planet.

"Master Bra'tac is dead," Teal'c said as Jack walked towards the DHD.

Jack froze, his back to Teal'c. His fist clenched by his side. "It's just us then. We can go to the alpha site from here. Find someone with a code to the Iris and get back home," he said, looking forlorn.

"What of Major Carter?" Teal'c asked, slightly fearful of the answer. He walked beside his friend carefully and looked to his expression. All the sadness in his life was hitting him at that moment.

"We can at least say goodbye," Jack whispered, his head bowed so longer strands of graying hair fell forward and hid his eyes. Teal'c nodded and Jack began to dial the Stargate.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Daniel, run!" Sam screamed at the top of her lungs. "They're going to kill her!"

A second had gone by for him and Hammond but Sam's frantic screaming definitely got their attention.

"Sam, calm down!" Daniel pleaded but Sam was to the point of tears.

"No! She's in the parking lot up top. There are two white cars chasing after her. A Cadillac and a Mercedes. I didn't get the license plates. I don't think they had any. But they're going to corner her, Daniel. They're gonna take her away!"

Daniel ran all the way to the top floor, not bothering with many elevators. But she was already gone. Surveillance videos proved it. Two cars were chasing after her.

Hammond had a covert team of black vans together by the time Daniel got back upstairs. Police were already on the way to her house. Daniel was running to join them. But before he left, he stopped by the infirmary for a quick second and said goodbye to Sam and Ree, just in case it was the last time.

…Janet never made it home.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Ree! Tell me what's going on!" Sam pleaded. They were back in their shared fantasy world. But this one was darker. It was the base one dreary night. But inside Cheyenne, it was always night without Jack. _

_Ree sat huddled in the corner of the mess hall hugging her knees and staring off into space. "Lower your voice. They'll hear you."_

"_General Adrienne O'Neill! As your mother, I command you to tell me what that was all about. What's going to happen to Janet?"  
_

"_Do you really want to know?" _

"_Yes," Sam said firmly, sitting on the floor in front of her and regretting her answer._

"_They're not going to kill her." _

_Sam sighed with relief then rethought her reaction, as she did with everything nowadays. _

"_It's going to be much worse than that. It's the rogues, Sam. They've taken her to implant her with a Goa'uld symbiote they've cloned and fully aged. We won't see her again for 3 years. They'll think they've controlled it but they won't and they'll spend all that time trying to get it to work. She'll get free, don't worry. But by then, all you've ever known to be Janet will have dried up with the blood they found in her jail cell. The symbiote will come in search of the Gate and take over the Stargate in the process. But that won't happen for a decade and a half…"_

_Sam had begun to cry. She knew Ree wasn't done but that was all she could stand of her emotionless tone._

"_You know where they've hidden her, right?" _

"_Yeah, too bad I can't tell you."_

_Sam was going to get angry. She could feel it want to escape her. Why couldn't Ree just tell her? But she let it go. She wasn't sure why. _

"_Adrienne… What can I do to make you-"_

"_Bring him back!" Ree yelled tearfully. _

"_Bring who back?" Sam was truly puzzled. _

"_Dad. Please, bring him back." Their whispers continued to echo the fantasy that had become their lives. _

"_I can't do anything about that, Adrienne. He left of his own accord."_

"_No! You sent him away! You got sick and you were dying and he gave himself up for you! And still you sent him away!"_

"_Ree, what are you talking about? Is that what happened the first time around?"_

_Adrienne nodded and wiped away lying tears, looking off into a button on Sam's shirt. "He didn't come back because you sent him away. You told him _this_ was more important," she said, extending her arms to the room, to the base, to this life they'd chosen._

"_Adrienne, it _is_ more important. We're saving lives here."_

"_No, none of it matters. They all die anyways. What's important is you and him. When he asks, tell him yes. Please, Mom. I'm begging you. Forget about Janet and Teal'c… Forget about Daniel, Gods know I've tried. Forget about them all. They mean nothing to you now."_

_Sam closed her eyes and let a final desperate tear escape before getting up and walking straight out of Adrienne's sanctuary, leaving her daughter to the remaining shreds of her humanity._

When Sam woke up, she was still in Ree's body. She thought maybe going back into their heads could split them up but it hadn't. They were truly stuck for the time being, but she was sure they wouldn't stay like this for long. After all, she had things to do. Hearts to break. More people to kill.

Daniel returned and Adrienne had been right. There was no sign of Janet anywhere. And when Daniel heard there might not be for a long, long time, he began to mourn her. He no longer visited Adrienne every moment of the day, even if one of his best friends controlled her body.

Sam's own body continued to die inexplicably. Blame started getting thrown around the room holding all the geneticists, doctors, and scientists trying to figure out what the hell was going on and who Adrienne could possibly be. They knew she wasn't human. That was for certain from her first check-up but what she was exactly was an enigma many were drooling to get their hands on.

Bluntly, they wanted a scalpel sharp enough to see how she worked inside. But Sam would not allow it. Now that Daniel had abandoned her and Teal'c and Jack were off getting killed, she was the only one holding everyone back.

Adrienne knew that, Sam figured. She began to wonder if they were in one body for Ree to protect herself. They could kill Adrienne. They couldn't kill Sam.

And then the day came when Jack would return.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART FOURTEEN:**

--When's Jack finally getting back to the SGC?

--What was that whole possession thing with Jack and Anubis about?

--How will they save Sam?

--Will they ever return to the slave camp?

--What happened with Jack and Sam in Ree's future?

--Will Adrienne ever reveal where Janet really is?

--And finally… Who will save the world when SG-1 is scattered in the mist?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**Coming soon… **

"**Lost Time" - **_What can Sam do when all she has left in the world is the unborn reminder of a lost love?_ (Sequel to "Level 28." Write me a review to get a classified summary.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And to be alerted when a new chapter is posted, add "Level 28" to your Story Alert list below. (It's right in the scroll box under "Submit Reviews" -- HINT HINT! -- in case you want to do both. )** REVIEW!**


	14. Home

"Level 28"

_Special thanks go out to Jenn (roseofthegate) for her continued fandom. And for StupidMajor for being with me since the beginning, helen8uk for joining in the groupie list, scottiedog for making me laugh, and 001ElvenWarrior for being my first reviewer. That means a lot. _

**----AriadneInLove---**

_And now…_

**PART FOURTEEN: **_Home_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack and Teal'c stepped through the Stargate onto the alpha site looking deathly. And death was just what they were expecting. Jack's thoughts were on Sam. He didn't care that he'd died. He hadn't even realized that. Teal'c wasn't sure if he remembered. After being tortured by Ba'al so many times, Jack was used to the sarcophagus. But he knew that if he woke up in one again, it might be the last time before he lost the last of his humanity.

Already Jack felt the effects. He didn't care anymore, and that was not normal. Had he been the Jack he once was, he would have gone back for Bra'tac's body or tried to free some of the slaves. But he didn't. He wasn't even sure where they had been or how long it had been. He just wanted to get back home… back to Sam. Where she was, home was. And right now, it was much too far away.

In his mind, he was preparing to say goodbye to a dead body, his speech to the corpse of a fallen angel. He'd get his chance.

"O'Neill, where is the base personnel?" Teal'c broke Jack's train of morbid thoughts.

"I don't know, Teal'c. How long has it been, anyway?"

"Months."

Jack cursed under his breath. "There's no one here. They'd be in the beta site. This place has been condemned since… since the last one was destroyed," he said, thinking of how he felt when he thought he had lost her. It was the same now, but worse. He had done nothing to help.

And then a plan came to mind. He could still save her.

"There's an underground bunker up ahead. It's automatic but it has hidden weapons and a radio system just in case. We can call home and see how they all are. And then we can keep searching for a cure. Who else can help?"

They reached the bunker at a hill. They hadn't been sure of its location but they found it hidden by shrubbery.

Jack jumped in eagerly and sent Teal'c back to dial the Gate with his staff weapon, a radio, and a zat to protect the outgoing wormhole.

He began to fiddle with the knobs as soon as Teal'c confirmed he had dialed Earth. He started the camera and began to send a signal through the wormhole.

"Stargate Command, this is O'Neill. Do you read me? I repeat, do you read me?" he said into the primitive mike. He wondered why the equipment was so out of date but he figured it had to do with the Goa'ulds and proper interfaces and that Sam would give him a reason eventually.

Nobody answered at first. He closed his eyes and rested his head atop his hand on the head of the mike in sad defeat.

And then the voice of an angel came through.

"Jack? It's Sam." an emotional shrill voice came through. He realized he was sending a video signal from the camera above and quickly went back to the mike.

"Yea. Yea, Sam it's me," he responded with a face of tearful relief.

"Oh God, Jack are you ok?"

"Yea, I'm ok. Teal'c's out at the Gate. He's good too. Bra'tac didn't make it though."

"Damn it, Jack. I never should have let you go."

"That doesn't matter now. How are _you_ doin'?"

He could hear Sam's voice choke as she tried to reassure him, "Yeah I'm pretty good."

"Frasier find out what's wrong?"

Sam was hesitant to respond. She didn't want to tell him about Janet yet. "No, we got nothing on this end."

"Well you sound good. You sound damn good."

Sam giggled a bit and he smiled tearfully. She saw it and stopped. It was hurting him. "Yea it's thanks to Adrienne. Uh, let's just say I'm in very rough territory right now."

"You can't be so bad. From what they told me was gonna happen, I would have expected-"

"Jack, please come home. I'm opening the Iris. Just go to the Gate and step through. I'm begging you."

"I can't, Sammy. We hit a little snag along the way. I don't have a cure yet."

"It doesn't matter! I don't care. Just come home!" she was yelling in full sobs. Her voice slipped and Jack noticed. It changed. It wasn't _hers_.

"Sam?"

"Yeah I'm still here," she said but her voice was different. She was too hysterical to hold back Adrienne's voice. She looked around and noticed everyone in the control room was looking at her sympathetically.

"Adrienne? Is that you?" he said, imagining the worst.

"No it's me. There's something I have to tell you. That I have to show you actually but I promise you it's me. Somewhere under here… it's me."

"Sam, there's somewhere I have to go. I know where I can find a symbiote."

"Damn it, Jack. Come home right now," she said through gritted teeth. It wasn't shielding her dwindling voice.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'll be back in a few hours… I love you." But before she could respond, he sighed, got up off the seat and left the camera running.

Sam found her hand shaking and her bottom lip quivering but it didn't stop her from crying her eyes out as soon as he clicked off and the Gate shut down.

Adrienne had kept quiet, just like the busy control room. General Hammond hadn't opened his mouth for a single instant. He knew if anyone could bring him home, it'd be Sam. But that hadn't worked and now he was the only one left to pick up the broken pieces of her heart.

_Sam, pick yourself up. Right now! You've got work to do_, Adrienne finally said in a stern voice.

_What is it Ree?_ Sam asked back, getting up from her chair in the control room, on her way back to Adrienne's room. _What could it possibly be now?_

_Dionysus is gone._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"O'Neill, the Gate shut down. Were you successful in your communications?" Teal'c asked as Jack came down the slope on the other side of the hill.

"Yea, T. We got one more stop to make," Jack said and began to dial an address Teal'c had never seen before.

"Might I ask where?"

"Nope. Just trust me, would ya?" And the Gate began to turn. Teal'c felt it beckoning trouble, and trouble was screaming at him to notice but he had to trust Jack. After so much time being alone or scared, he had Jack again and now he had to do it. Even if it was just to watch his back.

"Very well, O'Neill."

When they stepped onto the new planet, they saw a clearing in a sparse forest. The grass looked scorched and trampled. It reminded Jack of the forest on the planet where they'd found Dionysus, but not quite. His mind kept drifting back home. He had to hurry. They couldn't get caught now. He knew Sam's time was ending, no matter how much she had tried to hide it.

"We have to go about 3 miles up north to find the battlefield."

"What battlefield? Where are we, O'Neill?"

"It's a planet called Sirianya. I heard about it from Anubis. They just had a big fight up here. They left an entire battalion behind of injured Jaffa."

"I do not feel comfortable ending a fellow Jaffa's life."

"You won't have to. We find some mortally injured soldier or if I have to, I'll take it from the head of Ba'al himself."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"How the hell did he get out?" Sam yelled to the airmen.

"We didn't know he was a prisoner, ma'am. We would have watched him more closely if we knew he was dangerous. He was very polite. It didn't seem like he wanted to escape. I mean, why wait till now?" the lowly soldier said apologetically.

And then it hit her. Why would he wait till now? Had he reached his peak of power?

_Everything's different now, Sam,_ Ree said. _I don't know what's really going to happen. _

_How powerful is he?_ Sam asked back, angrily walking away from the airmen towards the control room.

_He can take away everyone you care about. Isn't that powerful enough?_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack and Teal'c had reached the battlefield. He'd been right. There were hundreds dead, a relatively small slaughter for Anubis. They knew super soldiers still lingered so they stealthily scrimaged through the field of dead bodies in search of a dying survivor.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c yelled. "I believe you should see this!"

Jack ran over and knelt beside Teal'c. A smile came to his face. Teal'c got up and moved to see the other dead, avoiding having to see Jack kill so cold-heartedly, no matter the circumstances.

"Ba'al, we meet again."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack walked through the Gate with a face of mixed shock and sadness. His eyes were so tired, yet so expectant. He wanted to see Sam waiting there for him. But she wasn't. Hammond was. He didn't take it as a good sign.

"Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c... welcome back," the general said.

"Hey George. Where is she?" Jack bluntly said.

"She's leading the search party for Dionysus. He escaped. Did you get anything?"

"Yes, General. We have a symbiote in stasis awaiting implantation at the alpha site," said Teal'c.

"Hmm. Then there's something you need to see." And Hammond led them to the infirmary. Teal'c went off with a nurse to get his many injuries fixed.

As soon as Jack saw Sam's limp body on that bed, he felt his stomach fold onto itself and gulped. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. "I thought you said she was out looking for Dionysus?" he asked, slightly angry but mostly if not completely knocked off his rocker.

"It's Adrienne. After Major Carter went blind, she slipped into a coma. Adrienne couldn't heal her so their consciousnesses blended or something like that. She can explain it to you later."

"But I just talked to her a little while ago!"

"No you talked with the major through Adrienne's body. She's been given full control of all motor functions."

"And Daniel? Where the hell is Daniel!"

Hammond looked down and away for a moment. "He's trying to find Dr. Frasier."

"Where _is _Frasier anyways? Shouldn't she be taking care of her!"

"Dr. Frasier was recently kidnapped by what Adrienne has identified as rogue agents a few days ago to try to implant her with a Goa'uld. Daniel's on a search mission but Ree says it'll be years before we see her again. By then, she might as well be dead. But he insisted on searching for her."

Jack was about to be sick. It was too much for him. He bent over slightly at the waist, holding onto his stomach as it whirled. His eyes got so heavy that the last thing he saw was the floor just before he hit it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART FIFTEEN:**

--What's Jack going to do when he sees Sam as Adrienne?

--Will Sam return to her own body, if she even can?

--When will we meet the betrayer?

--What about Janet and Daniel?

--Will Daniel give up looking?

--How will Adrienne handle Daniel being alone from now on?

--Where the hell is Dionysus? Is he really the bad guy?

--And finally... Who was responsible for making Sam sick in the first place?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And to be alerted when a new chapter is posted, add "Level 28" to your Story Alert list below. The more comments I get, the quicker I put out the next chapter so don't forget to **REVIEW!**


	15. Losing the War

------------------------------------------

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**

_I would like to thank the following people for their comments and frequent encouragement. _

001ElvenWarrior, Anaika Skywalker, dark3princess, fancymemad, Grub5000 SJ Fan, helen8uk, JoSG1fan, katy1986, linkinparkgundam, Matts-Girl1, meowx2, Moonrays and fridays, NadineCarter, novastar22, roseofthegate, sea2209, selache51, Spamurai, stargazzr8-28, StupidMajor, stusue, tmcccjc, Tony the jew, trtlsoup2001, and x-izzles-x.

_**6000 hits and counting...**_

------------------------------------------

NOTE: My Microsoft Word isn't working at the moment so please excuse the grammatical errors.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_And now…_

**PART FIFTEEN: **_Losing the War_

Daniel had looked for what seemed years but he could not find a single trace of Janet from the base to her house. He checked all the places she'd frequented, security cameras, witnesses. But no one had seen a thing. One moment she was there and the next she was gone. Literally.

That's what bothered him most. When they found her car, they checked nearby cameras. She had literally disappeared from her seat.

"The Asgard?" Adrienne asked over the phone, her tone seemed surprised. He had to be wrong or she was just kidding with him again. But it hardly seemed the time to kid and he figured it wasn't right.

"No? It was definitely an Asgard beam. Who could have access to Asgard technology?"

"Hmm. This is troubling. Any sign of the Cadillac and the Mercedes?" she said and he decided not to push it further because he knew she wouldn't tell him anything.

"None. How's Sam?"

"Not so good. She was close."

"Jack with her?"

"Yeah, he hasn't left her for a while. It's worrisome. I was about to bring him some food," Adrienne said, her voice sincere.

Daniel looked around. He was alone in Janet's office, sitting at her desk, the sounds of airmen and FBI and police officers running around crazy outside filtering through the door.

"Take care of the old man, 'kay? Tell him 'Welcome back' for me."

"Daniel… I…"

"Yeah Ree what is it?"

"I'm really sorry I can't tell you anything, but everything's different now."

"Is that why you… you and I never… uh…"

"I knew it wasn't real for you, Danny. You had Janet. I could tell."

Daniel closed his eyes and looked down at his shoes, still sitting on the edge of the desk staring out into the back yard through the large window. "Ugh, why didn't you say anything?" his voice seemed exasperated and tired and remorseful to no end.

Ree laughed a little bit for his sake but she wasn't in the mood to smile.

"It could have saved me a lot of trouble," he said.

"I'm gonna go see Dad now. Tell me if you find anything, anything at all. Okay?"

"Yea. Call if Sam wakes up."

"When. _When_ she wakes up," she said and hung up lightly, reluctantly. She didn't know what it was but she wanted to keep talking with him, hear his voice. It was so reassuring, so comforting, so safe.

She left Hammond's office and went down to the mess hall to get Jack some pie and maybe some for herself as well. She had never truly felt hungry but she wanted pie. She wondered if it was another residual feeling from Sam. She'd been getting a lot of those lately. Humanity was getting to her.

_You're a bad influence on me, Sam_, she thought and missed having another voice respond. She felt lonely but she had always been alone. She felt remorseful but she had always lived a sorry life. A sorry lie.

There wasn't any pie, she saw. She narrowed her eyes evilly at the airman in front of her in line that had taken the last piece. She didn't feel like eating anything else but got some dinner for Jack. They told her it was chicken something but she couldn't tell from looking at it.

The infirmary was so quiet. It seemed the entire base mourned her loss, even if she wasn't gone yet.

_People are so silly. As if I'd be here if she doesn't survive. _

She shook it off and found Sam's bed. Jack sat on a chair beside her, his hand atop hers, his hair a mess and his face looked like he hadn't shaved in months. This was technically true.

"Hey, Dad," she said quietly as if approaching in timid fear, two emotions she had never known either. She had always disregarded them since what happened with Dionysus.

She thought if she let anyone in again, she'd be vulnerable and Earth couldn't afford losing her. Not now, not ever. She wasn't sure if she wanted to leave again, either. Her original plan involved her own demise but now she was hopeful.

'What ifs' came to mind. What if she could save Dionysus from turning or being turned? What if they could save Janet before she's implanted and tortured? What if it was no longer wrong for her to live?

"Hey Ree," he said unemotionally. His face was solemn but he had hope in his eyes again and she knew he was always happy to see her.

"How'd your blood work check out?" she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Sam's, looking across to him and his ponderous expression.

"I don't know. _They_ don't know. They're worried I'm getting the same thing Sam had but I doubt it."

"No you aren't. I can tell. You'll be fine."

"I thought everything was different now. How can you know?"

"Because I know you. I can tell things about you. You and Sam, anyway."

"Can you tell how she's doing?"

Adrienne paused and looked over at Sam. "It's trying to take control of her. She's fighting but she's weak."

"She's strong. She'll come out of it ok, right?"

"She has to. If not, what the hell have I been fighting to save?"

"Hmm. Ree, tell me what's going on with Dionysus and you."

"What makes you think there's anything going on?"

"I'm your father, remember? I can see things too."

"He was my husband. A long time ago."

"You mean in a few years he'll be your husband."

"No, he _was_ my husband."

Jack looked away from Sam and raised an eyebrow at Adrienne to explain.

"The Goa'uld DNA that was used to make me was from a System Lord named Ariadne. Dionysus was her husband."

Jack looked scared. "Dionysus is a Goa'uld!"

"No! No. He's just… he's special. He's like me."

"He was made too?" She nodded. "Question is: by whom?"

Adrienne looked back to Sam and responded, "Sometimes people aren't made and they aren't born. They're reborn. Dionysus was kicked out of Ascension, Dad. He's neither good nor evil. He's immortal."

"Daniel got kicked out too. He just ended up naked in a field. As far as I know, he still bleeds red."

"They didn't have a plan for _him_. He wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Getting kicked out was a blessing for him."

"So the Ancients are behind everything?"

"Not just them. Not all are neutral. Neutrality may be a sin but interfering is worse."

Jack never liked her word games but he understood her cause for this. He didn't want to know anymore. He didn't want to know what kind of senseless tasks he'd have to be put forth to save him and Sam. He didn't want to know how long he had to live, for he knew it was not long. He didn't want to know the future, the past, the lives he could live.

"We live now, Adrienne. There's no neutrality. It's a war. And without her, we're losing."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel had given up looking. There were capable people for it. He was just in the way. So he left it in their hands and went back to the base, check in on the team.

He found his way to the infirmary. Jack still sat beside her and Adrienne still sat on the bed, a plate of lemon chicken still uneaten beside her right thigh. When he walked in, she smiled wretchedly. Jack gave him a look hello but he didn't move below the neck.

Danny sat down beside Ree on the bed, his hands folded on his lap.

"How'd it go?" she asked the tired archaeologist.

He sighed and responded, "Nothin'."

"You'll find her, don't worry."

"How you doing?" he said over to Jack.

"I've been better, Daniel."

"You've _looked_ better, too," Adrienne chipped in.

Jack looked over at her in her fatigues and Daniel's old clothes. "Likewise."

They both looked each other over and Jack smiled at their confused faces. "Where's Teal'c?" he asked.

"Funeral on Chulak. I think he's trying to find the people responsible. It's the whole Jaffa revenge thing," Ree responded.

Jack and Daniel nodded comprehensively. They knew all too well about the "Jaffa revenge thing" and its suicidal outcomes. They were all a little worried but Teal'c could take care of himself. They'd check in on him later, just in case.

"Ree, can I talk with you for a moment?" Daniel whispered in her ear.

Jack heard it anyway and said, "Go ahead, kid. We're ok here."

"Ok. I'll be back as soon as I can. Take good care of her, Dad."

The word "Dad" still made him wince. It was strange to hear again. It brought back memories of Charlie and though he tried to forget them, the pain was seeping through every cavity of his being. For the first time in years, he felt like an old man.

Daniel had taken Adrienne to the hallway outside and pinned her against the cement wall. He hadn't meant it as threatning and she didn't really take it as such but his proximity was driving her crazy. She cursed her humanity under her breath. He looked at her strange and placed a hand high beside her head. He was much too close.

"Ree, why are you doing this? Is she really meant to die?" he asked.

"Sam? What are you talking about? She's getting better."

"No, I'm talking about Janet and you know it. Tell me where she is, Adrienne."

His aftershave was intoxicating. It was not helping her enhanced senses, even though she was sure he'd applied it three or four days ago. He noticed her distance from the situation, her seemingly helpless behavior, the fact that she refused to look into his eyes.

"You know I can't do that! Stop asking!"

"Everything's different now, right? Why does it matter? It's about saving lives, Ree. Every life counts," he said and sighed, moving slightly away from her. Their tones were getting high, angry even. Still, the hallway was empty. They only worried their voices could reach Jack. "Adrienne, please. You said it yourself. She means so much to me, to all of us."

"Daniel..." she whispered.

"Ree." His voice was firm, his eyes fixed upon her. She seemed like she was caving, her own eyes becoming shimmering pools of tears. But she didn't cry because she knew she couldn't say anything. She cried because of Daniel, because she was causing him pain. And in that moment of realization, she decided to help him find Janet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack had stayed beside Sam's bed for hours, possibly days. He couldn't tell anymore. He took a book with him, _The Slaughter-House Five_, and he spent his time reading, looking over to see if she'd woken every other page. People would visit. Technicians and Hammond mostly. Walter brought roses and they sat in a vase on the table beside her.

From time to time, she'd spasm uncontrollably and nurses would come running but nothing would happen. Moments later, she was back to normal. The nurses had stopped coming after a while. She was getting better though. The color was returning to her delicate skin and he could see her hand move occasionally. He used to reach for it and beg she'd wake up but he stopped that as well.

"Why don't you go home, Jack. Take a bath, for christ's sake," General Hammond told him one day. Jack had disregarded him. He took showers in the locker room at the base instead but he still hadn't shaved and that was hardly what the general meant. "You don't want her to wake up and see you like this."

"Sorry General. Not too worried about what she wants at the moment. Just about what she needs."

"Then you being here should just about cover it. I'll leave you to it then. In the meantime, I want SG-1 back together as soon as possible. We hear word that Anubis and Ba'al's soldier are--" but the general didn't finish. Jack was too far gone and SG-1 was no more. There was no point.

What seemed like a week or two after he and Teal'c arrived back on Earth, Sam began to speak in her sleep. Nothing of any sense but it still brought a smile to Jack's face. A few days later, her eyes opened for the first time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Welcome to my home, Teal'c," the young man said. The symbol of Apophis was also branded on his forehead but his eyes were gentle and free of burden. He was no longer of the Goa'uld.

"Thank you, Deryc. It is good to finally meet you," Teal'c responded, extending his arm.

Deryc took it enthusiastically. He was so young by comparison. "Come in! Come! Let me introduce you to my wife, Aileia."

His wife was young as well, and approximately 5 months into her pregnancy. She had no insignia on her forehead. Teal'c found this strange but she had a nice smile and long brown hair. "A pleasure, sire." A soothing voice too.

They all sat around a wooden table inside their modest home.

"You say you can bring us soldiers?" Teal'c asked.

"I can. I hold allegiance with 17 tribes of Jaffa spread over 16 planets," Deryc said, not braggingly but beggingly.

"So I was told."

"You like Amazon women, eh Teal'c?" Aileia joked. "They speak highly of you, enough to recommend this trade, no?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow at the pregnant woman and gave her a friendly smile. It was strange that Deryc let her sit in as well. But already Teal'c could see this was not an ordinary Jaffa nor an ordinary child.

Deryc ignored her remark and continued, "Anubis knows of me. I have hid in these hobbles long enough. My wife deserves the safety of the Tau'ri."

Aileia looked at him as if she did not agree. "Your _wife _does not think so," she said. "The hobbles are where the people are, where I want my child born. With the people as they fight for our cause."

"This is not the time, Aileia," he said calmly and turned back to Teal'c. She got up from the table and left the humble home, slamming the door as she left. "I need her safe, Master Teal'c. If you provide safety for my refugees, and for my people, I'll give you warriors."

Teal'c took one final look at the swinging door and agreed. He thought of Drey'auc.

He left swiftly through the busy village. It was a good hiding place for a Jaffa leader. He could easily slip through the crowd.

But then he saw her, Aileia, walking towards the deep forest. He was expected back but he decided to follow her. It was a short walk before she reached a clearing and a rocky seat which she took gladly. He didn't know why he wanted to follow her but there he was and there was no going back.

"Aileia?" he asked. "May I speak with you?"

She nodded and he sat down on the large rocks above her. "What is it, Master Teal'c? ...He said yes, didn't he?"

"He did. And I see why. He merely wishes to protect you and your child."

"Yeah, I suppose. But these hobbles are what we're fighting for. We're no different than any of these people. I cannot leave them behind after they welcomed us without question."

"We can offer them sanctuary. I cannot promise it for everyone but those in imminent danger can be easily relocated."

"You think I haven't told them that?" she whispered to herself more than Teal'c. He heard her but kept quiet. "They will not leave their homes lightly. Nor should they have to. We're just peasents caught in the slaughter."

"You are not Jaffa, are you?" he asked, intrigued by her words and speech in general. She spoke like a Tau'ri.

"No, sire. I was born free. I'll die free."

"What about your child?"

He had struck a chord. She looked up quickly. Sometimes it was hard for her to realize she had another to care for. She couldn't be reckless anymore. Teal'c could tell she didn't follow Deryc. She led beside him. It was admirable, he thought.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack saw her eyes open and he felt his blood move again. "Sam?" he asked, getting up off his seat, throwing his book to oblivion. He was pretty sure he hit a nurse from the nose and the body that thud to the ground but he didn't care. "Damn it's good to see you up."

But Sam did not speak back, simply smirked deviously and caressed his cheek before moving her hand to his neck and begin to choke the life from him.

Her eyes glowed an ominous gold and Jack knew. Sam had lost the fight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART SIXTEEN:**

--What will Ba'al do now that he's in Sam's body?

--Why is Jack so unfeeling about the deaths he'll cause by not telling them the Goa'uld is Ba'al?

--Will they find Dr. Frasier?

--Is Adrienne falling in love with Daniel or is it just the excuse she gave him, the homing beacon of the previously Ascended?

--Will Adrienne's true extent of power be revealed?

--Is Jack willing to kill the woman he loves to save the world?

--What of this Deryc and Aileia? More lambs for the slaughter?

--And finally... Is that really Jack?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

So sorry for the delay! It was Spring Break down here and I'd left this chapter in school. But don't worry. I was still writing. The final two scenes have been written and most of PART SIXTEEN. I think I cried while writing them. They're quite possibly the saddest chapters I've yet to write. But don't worry. Expect PART SIXTEEN in less than two days time. WARNING: Unexpected character death approaches... swiftly and frequently.

**REVIEW!**


	16. Deathly Apparitions

----------------------------------------------------

**NOTE:**

_Forgive yet another delay. I was at a journalism convention for 3 days. But here you have it. Hope you liked it. _

--My Microsoft Word isn't working at the moment so please excuse the grammatical errors.--

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_And now…_

**PART SIXTEEN:**_ Deathly Apparitions_

_"Adrienne, where are we going!" _Daniel asked as they ran hand in hand through bars and sashes of yellow and blue lights, violets and reds all amix.

_"You wish to find her, no?"_ she responded, but their voices were lost in time. Somehow he heard her, in his head, just as he imagined she heard him but their voices echoed in such a far distance that seemed as if the lights around them rippled with motion and waves as if in melody. Perfect melody. There was a rhythm to it. Was this what Ree saw all the time? He made it a note to ask her later.

_"Why are we going like this? How are you doing this?"_ he asked, not really wanting an answer. And then he remembered her words that night she would not wake. _"Is this what you meant? About__ seeing time, tasting emotion, passing borders of existence and all that?"_

_"Yup. Now shush. I'm trying to find her by thought."_

_"Thought?"_

_"Human thought has a signature. It's like a voice that calls out to me. And each is different. So shut up or I'll leave you riding the big yellow ribbons!"_

Daniel did as he was told. And then a shushing sound came upon him and the yellow ribbons began to break down and stop and the world was visible again, but it was not a world he knew. It looked like a sewer but barred windows showed the large pipes high in the sky. Clouds surrounded them outside. And they walked still. Not ran. Walked. And it was more painful than running through time.

"Where are we?" he whispered.

"Goa'uld mothership. Not sure whose. We never found out. All the Goa'uld died after this, 'cause of her."

"'Cause of Janet?"

"Yup." She said it too easily. Janet meant nothing to her. She had probably never met her, only known her as the one that was compromised.

"I just want to know what the hell anyone would want with a doctor. Why Janet? They could have taken anyone else, anyone with knowledge of the Gate... Sam, Jack, Teal'c, me, you. Why Janet?" he was troubled by the question.

"Think about it this way, love: What does Janet know that they would want? Everything else is just a perk, really." They took a round corner into more sewage water and room-sized pipes. The giant pipes reminded him of the SGC corridors, neverending like a maze. "Sam may be my mother but Janet is the mother of transference cloning technology, Daniel."

"Transference cloning? You mean what the Asgard do where they transfer the consciousness into a new body, right? That's what they did to you? That's what you meant when you said you'd died and been reborn?" She smiled her mysteriously devious smile, the one that told Daniel that was as far as the conversation was going, and that the subject should be put to rest, as it was. But that's when they reached the end, the iron gates to a hell Daniel was more than ready for. He dreaded it with every molecule in his being. "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here..." he said to himself but it made Adrienne smile even more.

It was making him nervous. He still wasn't sure if she even wanted Janet alive. For all he knew, it was already too late and the cryptic smiles cruelly marked this. Adrienne blasted the prison bars away with what Daniel could only see as a simple caress of the rusting iron.

But surely enough, there she was. Janet. Tied up in a metal chair, dressed in white, tubes tied to veins in a metallic operating room the size of the Gate room.

No one in sight. Daniel dropped Adrienne's hand and ran to her, leaving Ree to close her eyes and regret her choices. She could have had him. For what little time it was, she could have had him. She wasn't sure why she wanted him for herself but that was gone now. And Janet was back.

"You've got 6 minutes before the guards come," she said as Daniel tried to wake Janet up, crossing her arms to hide from the cold and desolate feeling of loneliness.

But soon they would be back home and she wouldn't be alone anymore. She'd have Sam.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack, at the sight of her glowing eyes, stumbled back from her, slipping on the cold floor and falling back. Ba'al lifted the sheets off Sam's body and got up slowly as Jack pushed himself back from her on the floor quickly. He looked down at him and smiled, cornering him against the wall. The smile that had once captivated him was bringing his destruction and Jack couldn't handle it. His breathe left him, long before Ba'al knelt down beside him to choke the life from him.

"No... Sam!" he yelled through a coarse gasping. Sam's hand was at his throat, his own trying to pry her off but Ba'al strength was already seeping through her every muscle. Then the blast from a zat gun came out of nowhere and Ba'al moved off, escaping through the door into the hallway. The airman who had fired the zat knelt down to help him while his partner when to follow Ba'al down the hallway.

"No!" Jack yelled, despite his throat. "Don't kill her!"

He got up as quickly as he could, taking the gun off the airman's holder, and went running after her.

But he was too late.

Soldiers already littered the halls. And she was already at the elevator, looking at him with sinister eyes that had never seen him so and a smile that had never hated him so. And he raised his gun and pointed towards the elevator just as the doors began to close, pulling the trigger quickly and watching as he shot the woman he loved before he even knew the gun had fired.

The bullet reached Sam right in the middle of her abdomen but it did not stop her, merely shocked Ba'al into freezing. The gun he had taken fell to the floor but Jack still refused to lower his. He closed his eyes and shot her again, knowing it reached her even if he did not mean it.

Relationships were like that with him. He always hurt the ones he loved, even with his eyes closed. Even if he didn't mean it. Even if he got there... late.

And Sam reached the floor of the elevator. The doors closed just before he stepped in front of her and he was left out.

Her injured body made it down to Level 28 and the doors opened again. Ba'al tried to crawl out of the elevator with much unease. An airman walking by saw her and tried to help her up. He knew her by name, something Sam would never forget, and then Ba'al simply reached for his zat and began to shoot anyone in his way.

All he needed to know was in Sam's head.

He shot all the technicians and a few scientists in his way. General Hammond came running from his office into the control center as soon as he heard shots, followed by 6 airmen. All zatted down or shot, whichever hand was quicker. Hammond was lucky. He only got zatted and fell to the floor. Collapse. All of 28. Down.

But before he could get the Stargate open, Sam's body gave way and he could no longer hold onto the walls and chairs. He could no longer feel his hand on the trigger. He could only feel the cool of his host's blood upon his flesh like a covering. He had to leave her, flee her body. He saw the body of one of the technicians on the floor. Zatted. And took his chance.

He left her body and took over the soldier's, reviving him in mere instants and running for the controls to the Gate. He clicked the final "Enter" button and walked down the stairs to the Gate room calmly. They couldn't stop him now.

And they didn't.

When Jack finally got through the stairs to Level 28, Sam was bleeding to death on the floor and the airman was standing at the base of the ramp, looking up at the control room with his hands in his pockets and eyes full of gold. He gave a wave of his hand and the same smug smile and stepped through.

Jack could have gone after him, could have followed him and hunted him down but there was no point. They'd meet again.

Instead, he ran to Sam and picked her up as carefully as he could and ran her up to the infirmary as quickly as he could before his rush of adrenaline ran out. The whole time, he thought of how he was going to say goodbye. Nothing came to mind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c walked Aileia back to the village. Two hours passed, which he spent with their family planning the assault and their escape. He was still surprised how much Aileia contributed. Usually it was completely control from one sex or the other. Never had he seen someone treat themselves such an equal, let alone someone outside his proud warrior race. When he left, he knew it might be the last time he see her and said his goodbye. But Deryc came with a warning.

"Don't do anything until you hear from me. Do you understand?" he'd told him at the Gate. Deryc had nodded, not responded. Teal'c didn't like it one bit.

He stepped through the Gate and walked right into a death room. Mere hours ago, Hell had risen to take away what little hope in humanity he had left.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"How long does she have?" Hammond asked the attending nurse.

"Not very long," Adrienne answered before the nurse could respond, coming up and out of the shadows. Jack crept slowly towards them behind her. "Can you give us a few moments?"

The nurses cleared from the solitary room. They had to isolate her. Daniel put a hand on Jack's shoulder before he and Hammond left. It was his way of saying he was sorry for what had happened. Jack took it as misplaced sympathy. He thought himself responsible and no amount of pity was going to erase that.

"Am I too late?" Jack asked.

Adrienne sat beside her on the bed. "She's nearly gone. I don't think she can hear you."

Jack tears refused to leave him. Adrienne thought it was shock or disbelief but maybe he was just mature about it. He could have to come to terms with people dying. It worried her. Maybe he had ignored how much he cared for her. He hadn't shed a tear for the 14 lost. Maybe he considered her one of the victims, another faceless victim.

"There's still time. You can make me see her, right? If she's dead?"

"I have that power, yes, but I don't know if I can make you see her."

"Try, Ree. Please." His voice wanted to tremble and crack but the somberness of his tone hid it. Ree cried for him. She had to go to the past to be able to do that. He would have to too, she thought. He'll cry when he thinks of this moment. Maybe not now but maybe later. Maybe. Maybe he didn't really care for her, but she dismissed that thought when she saw the look in his eyes when he went to hold her hand.

Her hand was cold, died before she did. The wounds on her were covered but the blood still seeped through. It didn't bother him.

She closed her eyes and tried all she could to see her there, her soul hidden in time and in space and in the glimmer of her eyes. She called to her memories and to her senses and there was Sam in the back of her mind, a figure of Sam as she had seen her. Calm and serene in her blue fatigues, surrounded by the darkness of Ree's mind.

She extended her hand for Jack which he took, still holding onto Sam's on the other side of the bed. The powder-light left them from in between their woven fingers. It hurt them, all of them. Sam's heart rate sped up and the beeping of the machines became incessant.

Ree tried as hard as she could but he couldn't see her. There would be no goodbye. There would be no resolution and he'd always have the knowledge that he killed the woman he loved.

"I'm sorry, Jack. There's nothing I can do."

With that, she pulled her hand away and got up from the bed. He blinked and she was gone from the room. Time had left him as well. He looked back and saw she had left the door open. He got up to close it slowly.

The beeping of the machines became constant. She was gone. He leaned his head against the closed door, his hand still on the knob, when he felt a chilly wind that sent shivers from his legs up his back.

He turned around quickly and there she was.

Sam.

Standing a mere inch from his nose.

Her smile hid a lie. Her eyes hid the truth. Her clothes were flimsy and practically see-through, the color of falling snow, her hair fair and blown asunder by the ghost chill.

She didn't look like she was dying. She looked like an angel. As much as his heart beat, as much as he wanted to hold her, he knew she wasn't real.

"I'm too late aren't I?" he half-whispered to himself, half-asked the apparition. "What are you?"

"I'm what you will," it said.

He smiled. How sweet, how perfect its tone like ghostly music calling out to downtrodden soldiers. He felt his heart drop in his chest, melted into him.

"You mean you _are _my will."

"You will me into being; I am her as you see her."

"I don't want you. I want all of her. If you know my will, you know I don't care for imitations. I want to say goodbye."

The apparition bowed her smiling head slightly and turned to power, flying light-colored pigments in the chilly wind. They receded back into the limp body on the bed.

And just as the lights fell upon her, her eyes opened and a new light lit the morning: her deep blue eyes.

"Jack?" her coarse whispers echoed the room. "What's wrong?"

His solemn smile took away his tearful eyes, hid under lose strands of gray hair. "Nothing's wrong, honey. Everything's ok now."

"Why can't I feel you? Why can't I see you!"

He felt his jaw become unsteady, no long the strong base of emotion. He looked away but a tear was already escaping him. He sucked it up and took her gentle hand in his and raised it to his cheek.

"I'm right here, darling. I'm right here."

"Jack, I'm scared," she whimpered, looking at the empty world he thought he'd taken her from. The she straightened her firm face and looked forward, determined as always. "I'm dying, aren't I?"

"Don't say that." He refused to tell her the truth.

"But it's true," she said pulling her hand away and setting it on the adjacent wall behind the bed, trying desperately to hold her composure.

Slowly, she began to slide down to the floor, her legs useless under her white hospital gown. He quickly caught her as she fell, holding onto her shoulders and calling out, "Hold on, Sam. Don't go."

"But it's calling me."

"Sam, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell them, didn't kill Ba'al when I had the chance. I'm sorry I let my feelings for you do this to us. I'm sorry I never told you I loved you. And I'm sorry I never took you fishing or on that midnight stroll... Please! Just don't leave me! I can't do this again!"

"Just don't forget me, Jack. Don't ever forget me."

"I'll find you. I promise. I'll look through every memory to find you so you'll never be gone." Her heart grew slower and slower as his quickened in fear.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, rocking her in his arms on the floor. "I'm so sorry..."

But she was already gone.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART SEVENTEEN:**

--How will Sam ever come back to us?

--Is Teal'c falling in love with a married, pregnant woman?

--Why do we fear Deryc will do something stupid?

--What will happen to Jack?

--Can Adrienne find a way or is it too different now?

--What did they do to Janet?

--What will Sam do when she finds herself not dead but in the company of an old friend?

--And still we do not know... who will betray SG-1 and to whom?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**UP NEXT: **_The return of an old romance, Orlin. Will the Ascended taken Sam from Jack now that she realizes she can never go back?_

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Answers are coming up. Don't forget to add me to your story alert list so you don't miss a single chapter! And if you'd be kind enough...

**REVIEW!**


	17. The Mourning After

---------------------------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_Note the time during the next couple of chapters, as Adrienne seems to have planned it all too well. Notice how Jack says he's giving his "two weeks notice" and leaves that very day. These are the final two weeks of _Level 28

_At one point in PART EIGHTEEN, Orlin and Sam's and Jack and Daniel's fantasies overlap in past events. So scenes you've read now might come up again with slightly different POVs and minor events. Try to play along. All will be explained._

_And don't forget! Something happened to Jack while he was temporarily possessed by Anubis. The effects of this will be seen after Sam returns._

--My Microsoft Word isn't working at the moment so please excuse the grammatical errors.--

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_And now…_

**PART SEVENTEEN**_The Mourning After__  
_

-------

Teal'c came back to a shattered home. Sam was dead. Jack was broken. Daniel was caught in the middle. And Janet. Janet had infiltrated their lives in the blink of an eye and taken off just as quickly.

Daniel kept up with her. But she was home for now, recuperating. Cassie was looking after her but that's all. They hadn't told her Sam died until 9 days after it happened. Jacob was away on assignment. He hadn't heard yet. He wouldn't for a while. By then it would lose all meaning. Death often did after a while. It was part of acceptance. But Jack couldn't let it go.

He'd taught himself to accept it, seeing it so often for so many years. He'd become numb to it, but not with Sam. He'd promised himself never to forget her and he was forcing himself to do just that. It was hurting him dearly.

They hadn't buried her yet. Her body still lay in the morgue. Jack hadn't visited her since it happened.

Everyone seemed to know how much they cared for each other, even strangers in the halls. He knew they all suspected but they all pitied him now and the looks alone were destructive. Hammond had offered him some leave. He hadn't accepted.

"I'd like to resign, sir," he said instead, his face blank but determined. It was so hard remembering her all the time. He couldn't remember the last time he slept.

"I understand, Colonel, but think about what you're saying. What about Adrienne? She still needs you. What about this program?" Hammond said.

"I'm finished here, George... Consider this my two week's notice."

And he left without another word.

Daniel hadn't spoken with Janet the entire time she was back. She refused to let him into her house and Cassie, to see her well sooner, did as she was told. They weren't sure why she was alienating herself but she was.

Outside her doctors, only Daniel and Adrienne had seen her. She didn't seem much different. Her hair was longer, her skin paler, her eyes hollow.

But she had let Adrienne come in once. Daniel had waited outside. When she came back out, her expression hid ghost tears and went straight to hug him. They walked out hand in hand. He didn't question anything further but he noticed the little things more.

Adrienne came closer to him, hugged him or kissed him hello like she'd known him for years. It was hard not to treat her like one of them. She fit so well, like the perfect puzzle piece in their little family. The question remained: would she take over for Sam?

Nobody knew of Jack's decision to leave. They still had one final mission and Jack didn't want to leave it alone.

Sam had been dead a week and already they were out. Adrienne would join the boys one last time before SG-1 was broken up. They hadn't talked about it but they knew it was inevitable. They hadn't even sat down together. Jack was avoiding them. Hadn't even bothered going to the briefing.

But now they stood at the ramp before the event horizon, completely exposed. They couldn't hide from each other.

Jack came in a little late. His P-90 hung as always as he fixed his hat. Daniel noticed Adrienne looking at it cautiously. She didn't trust him with it. He was planning something, she could tell. Daniel had decided to back _her _up given Jack's state.

Nobody spoke, only shared strange glances. Daniel and Adrienne walked side by side with Teal'c in the rear and Jack up front, his vision held high. Determination was often a self-destructive sign of a frequent mourner.

"Jack, do you know where you're going?" Adrienne asked somewhat cautiously.

"Yes, Ree," he said sternly, through gritted teeth.

"Then why are we going straight for a lake?" she asked back. Jack stopped and everyone stopped behind him. He took a left and kept walking.

"It's this way," he said.

Daniel looked to Ree and she responded with worrisome eyes. She looked to Teal'c and even his own expression seeped through his tough shell.

They reached what was once the village. Fire ruled there now. The screams drew them in. The cries for help could be heard a mile away. They ran to their target, Adrienne in the far lead. She refused to tire because she knew there was someone there she couldn't risk dying, not if she wanted to preserve any of the good things she'd left behind.

"Hurry! Run!" she yelled but they were too far behind.

Teal'c was the first to reach her, just standing there in front of the wreckage and flying debris. Jack and Daniel joined a half minute later. "What are you doing? Why aren't you helping?" Teal'c asked. "Do something, Ree!"

"I'm sorry, Teal'c. I can't. This _has _to happen," she responded with a truly remorseful face. Then she looked over to the edge of the village right before it reached the forest and whispered, "Go after her."

Teal'c looked over and saw Aileia run into the thick woods. She was covered in blood but something told Teal'c it wasn't hers. He didn't think twice and ran after her.

Adrienne saw him go and began walking through the burning village. The fire parted for her and like an angel, she went through hut by hut and carried out the children still alive.

Jack helped the surviving men kill off the Jaffa invaders while Daniel helped Adrienne stop the fire. But the invaders bore no mark. They were human. And once again, Jack found the life of another innocent person in his hand. They were mere children.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Aileia, stop!" Teal'c yelled, trying to catch up with the pregnant woman.

But she was already sitting on a large boulder when he reached the clearing where they'd talked before. She stood up, her eyes wide in fear, ready with a zat pointed at his heart.

"Teal'c?" she said in-between gasps and breathlessness. Tears had blended with the bloody palm print across her cheek. Someone she loved had said goodbye.

He didn't say anything. He knew Deryc's recklessness would catch up to him eventually. He'd just hoped it woudn't have to be so soon.

He walked towards her, knelt down, and hugged her as she wept into his shoulder.

"He's dead, Teal'c. They killed him."

"It's going to fine. I promise. I'll take care of you."

It didn't stop her from crying hysterically. Pregnant woman often did but never without so much cause.

"Are they gone?" she whispered in his ear, still holding tightly for dear life.

"Don't worry. You're safe now. Come on," he responded, helping her up off the ground, still holding her tightly as they walked side by side back to the remnants of the village. The fire had dwelled down. She broke away from him and walked down the charred road with quivering hands atop her stomach until she left the village and met them at the Stargate.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hello, Samantha," she heard a familiar voice call out to her in the void. Everything was dark, empty. She felt herself floating as if in water. But when she opened her eyes, she was blinded by white light, and then she realized it was her angel.

"Orlin," she whispered but in her head, the echoes bounced endlessly. It reminded her of how Adrienne saw the world, almost surreal.

And it was just that. The _un_real.

"Welcome to The Hollow, Sam," he said, walking through the light into a grand autumn day in DC.

"I know this place," she responded. "This park was a block from my house growing up."

"Indeed it was. It's good to see you again."

And then she felt her memories come back like a freight train hitting her head on.

"Jack..." she whispered, looking away. She noticed she was in a white dress, barefoot as she'd been so often as a child.

"He's fine, Sam. He's back in the real world."

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

"Getting there. Your body's dead but your soul is very much alive... Walk with me, Sam."

"This is one of those moments where you tell me to release my burden and Ascend, isn't it?"

"I see Daniel's been talking to you. Or was it Adrienne?"

"You know about Adrienne, huh?"

"Of course. I've spoken with her often in the last few weeks. Ever since she came back, actually."

Sam scoffed. "You still didn't answer me. Is this an offer of Enlightenment, or goodbye?"

"Why ask when we both know what you really want? You weren't supposed to die there, Sam. In the original timeline, you were never implanted with a Goa'uld. You Ascended," he explained.

"But I was. Does that change anything?"

"Everything. People died. I cannot help them. Neither can Oma. It's up to you to pay back their lives."

"How do I do that if I'm dead? Was it even my fault?"

"No but if you carry Jack's heart, you carry his burden."

"I carry his what? I never..."

"Can't lie to me, Sam. Besides, tempting time is not the smartest thing to do right now."

"Time or fate?"

"No such thing as fate, you know that. Time was laid out. When Adrienne came back, she made your destiny but fate it can never be."

"Do the other know you're helping me?"

"Yes. But I don't care anymore. I promised Adrienne I'd save a little piece of you."

"Which piece?" she asked, stopping to look straight into his eyes through lost strands of blonde hair.

"The parts that loved unconditionally. The slices of conviction. The bits you left in all our hearts."

"My soul, you mean?"

"It's all anyone is."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel, Jack, and Adrienne saw Teal'c and Aileia off at the Gate with some of the refugees. There weren't many. The injured ones that could not be moved laid covered in standard issue sheets on the ash-ridden streets outside their homes. Medics would come soon enough.

Jack wanted to wait for the meds at the Gate but Adrienne and Daniel refused to leave him alone.

"I'll wait with you," Daniel offered and Jack dismissed him but he insisted and Ree was already on her way to help the wounded.

"Jack, talk to me."

"About what, Danny?" he responded in a tired, irritated tone.

"You lost someone, Jack. You have to talk about it or it won't go away."

Daniel noticed he refused to look him straight in the eye. "If I wanted pointless retoric, I'd watch Dr. Phil, Daniel. Leave it alone."

A cliff had caught his vision instead. It was behind the Gate. He hadn't even noticed the Gate resided atop it, looking down over the vast, endless valley below. The sun was setting down right down the center in the distance.

Jack extended his hand as if he could catch the light in his closing fist. But when he drew it towards him, the sun still set in the distance. It reminded him of Sam. He thought he had her in his grasp but did he lose her or did he ever have her?

He went closer to the edge. "It's like looking onto Heaven, isn't it?" Daniel asked. The colors of the setting sun had splayed over the entire horizon and the sky overflowed with purples and reds and oranges that carried with them the sad tune of the dead.

Jack didn't turn around. "Heaven left me when she did."

"Ah, and so we come to the infamous question: why give immortality to he who spends eternity mourning?" Daniel asked. "After all we've done, it's hard to imagine we could ever die but we can, Jack. We do, we will."

"Don't pull that Oma crap, Daniel. There's no point to this life anymore. Sam was the last straw," Jack said as he and his friend stood side by side above the abyss, freezing hands in pockets that held no warmth.

"Was there ever?"

"No. Eternity is wasted on the predestined loners and unrequited lovers."

"Now who's sounding like Oma?" Daniel joked but Jack did not seem to budge from his sorrowful expression. "I lost someone too, Jack. I've lost family, some at my own hand. I've lost my wife and my home and my only reason for being. All I have left is this war. It's all any of us have left."

"So our only reason for living is to kill and be killed and witness the death of everything we love?"

"No! It is to die so that others may live," Daniel said passionately, turning from the light of the setting sun to his desolate friend. "We are protectors, Jack. As long as we remember that we are servants to a cause, to protect those who find no mercy, we'll stop ourselves from ever reaching the self-indulged madness of fake godlyhood. We are flawed! But we are alive and free to move, to live! Free to mourn as we wish..."

Jack was breaking down, Daniel could tell. His pain escaped his eyes, their cold jailcell. "Do you still remember her? Your wife? The way she was when she was alive..."

"The picture of her has faded but dreams hold me chained to her. Knowing I was once truly happy is all that feuls my resolve. Don't get me wrong, there've been moments since but there'll always be Sha're in the back of my mind," Daniel answered.

The two looked down at the abyss, the once-hidden truth of humanity as the sun rose from its quick slumber. Lights like powder rode the clouds of ominous orange light.

Jack thought of Sam's final moments, lost already to the human mind within him.

"I can't do it, Daniel," he whispered as he looked down at his boots, desperate to turn away from the harsh reminders of her. "It'd be like helping the very bastards that took her from me."

"Hmm. I get ya. But think about what will happen with both of you are gone? You think the NID will just forget everything we do here? You think they'll leave Adrienne alone? You think Hammond's going to be able to stop the enemies at the Gate now? You weren't the only one who lost someone. The world lost a savior."

Jack smiled a bit, his eyes still fighting back the pain. "Not bad for Dr. Phil, Danny."

Daniel smirked back and realized the medics still hadn't come and Adrienne hadn't come to see what happened. "Why do think the relief team is taking so long?"

Jack snapped out of it and looked at Daniel. "Oh crap," he said and went to the Gate. He began to dial Earth but the 7th chevron refused to lock.

"It won't dial."

They looked at each other for a moment, nodded, and ran back to the village. "Adrienne!" they both yelled. She knelt beside the wounded.

"The Gate won't dial Earth!" Daniel yelled.

Ree stood up quickly in shock. "What! No, that's not supposed to happen yet!"

"What? What's going on?" Jack asked.

"Ba'al's attacking Earth. We're cut off."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART EIGHTEEN:**

--Is Deryc really dead?

--Who killed him?

--Is Sam going to talk to Jack while she's still in "limbo" or will she return as flesh and blood?

--What have Adrienne and Orlin been planning?

--What happens in the final two weeks of "Level 28?"

--What of Teal'c and Aileia? Daniel and Adrienne? ...Jack and Sam?

--And finally... What will happen at the return of Janet?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**DID YOU KNOW?** _Originally, Janet was going to be infiltrated by a Goa'uld, not Sam. Sam was not going to die, merely make Jack realize his own guilt on the events and break away from her as he retires to save her further harm. The final breaking will still occur. But don't worry. The final two weeks will reveal all..._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't forget to add me to your story alert list so you don't miss a single chapter! And if you'd be kind enough...

**REVIEW!**


	18. The Mistress

-----------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_This was going to be the first sex scene chapter but because of fear of Level 28 being taken out, I'm not putting in any explicit details, only the knowledge that yes, a sex act did take place. If you wish to read the actual sex scene, I'll be posting it with the other deleted/alternate scenes after the last chapter. _

_And don't forget! Something happened to Jack while he was temporarily possessed by Anubis. The effects of this will be seen after Sam returns._

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------_

**IMPORTANT PLOT NOTE:**In Greek mythology, Dionysus is "twice born" because supposedly, his body is torn to shreds by the Titans and all is eaten except his heart which Zeus implants back into Dionysus' mother, Semele, so he can be reborn as "Zagreus." Just thought you might want to know.

--------------------------------------------------

_And now…_

**PART EIGHTEEN:**_ The Mistress_

-------

"You know what I could really use right now? A barbecue," Adrienne said as they all sat around a campfire that night. "Maybe some beer. Or both."

Daniel smiled and looked at Jack who was fighting back a smirk as he poked the fire with a long stick. The injured villagers were asleep now. Everyone was relatively safe for now. Whoever had planned the attack would have thought them dead by now and nobody had any interest on that planet so they all took watch in the clearing in the forest.

"I could use some pasta. Fettuccini Alfredo. There's a nice little Italian restaurant a few blocks from my place that serves the best fettuccini of life," Daniel said after a short moment of appreciation for Adrienne's O'Neill-like randomness.

"Reigalo's? Yea they're good. Cartini is better but it's Mediterranean, about 4.7 miles from Cheyenne," Adrienne responded.

Jack and Daniel looked up and stared at her from a moment. She dismissed her own weirdness and slid down the log onto the dirt by Daniel's legs.

"I could go for some O'Malley's," Jack said out of nowhere. They weren't expecting a response from him. He'd hardly spoken all night.

"I'm pretty sure we've been banned from there, Jack," Danny said.

"How come?" Adrienne asked.

"You don't know?"

"Nope. It wasn't in the files and it never came up. What does steak have to do with off world reports?"

"You remember the little episode with the armbands that--"

"Enhanced all your natural abilities?"

"Yup. Well it made us kind of crazy and we had some serious cravings for red meat and somehow it resulted in a bar fight at O'Malley's. Thus we are banned," Daniel said.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow somewhat Teal'c-like. She wondered how he was doing but taking Aileia back to safety was the best thing for all of them. Then again, nowhere was it safe anymore.

"I still want steak," Jack said and threw the stick into the fire carelessly.

"You are such a freakin' kid, Dad," Ree said, shaking her head with a smile.

"You know what? I could use some steak too," Daniel agreed.

"Want me to get you guys some fresh steak?" Adrienne said. Jack looked at Daniel. Daniel looked at Adrienne.

"We're not that desperate."

"I'm gonna go check the Gate again. Something's got to be wrong if it won't lock after so long," she said and got up off the ground, heading towards the cliff.

After she'd left, Jack and Daniel continued talking, taking advantage of the fact that Jack was saying anything at all.

"What do you think is happening over there?" Jack asked.

"Who knows? If the Goa'uld did infiltrate the SGC, why would they lock out the Gate? Could they be keeping it open to prevent an escape like in the alternate universe?"

"Ba'al's army was gone, Daniel. I'm not so sure it's him at all."

Daniel looked up from the fire at Jack. "What do you have in mind?"

"I dunno. But there's something bugging me about all this. It's all too much of a coincidence. Just after Teal'c goes through, it shuts down? How do we even know it's the Earth Gate? We stopped trying after Adrienne told us Ba'al would attack," Jack said, drawing in closer to the small fire, lowering his tone so no one but Daniel across from him could hear. "What do you think it could be?"

Daniel paused for a moment and put on his worried face then whispered, "Adrienne..." and looked up behind Jack, who turned around as soon as he saw Daniel's expression.

Surely enough, there she was. Ree. With a face of stunned horror or hurt. Jack began to apologize when he saw she was holding onto her stomach with both hands. She looked down and saw blood but it was not hers.

She'd been to the village again.

She knelt down on the rough forest ground and threw up. Daniel went to help her, pulled her hair back.

"So much for genetic engineering," Jack said and took a sip of his canteen, going back to his fire as if nothing. Adrienne took slight offense. It's not something Jack would say before, not with so little care. What had happened to the man her mother spoke of with such passion and reverence? What happened to the man that bore a legend?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where do you want to go, Sam?" Orlin asked almost cheerfully.

"What do you mean? Where can we go if we're in my head?"

"We're not in your head."

"Ok, where can we go if I'm dead?"

"Anywhere and everywhere."

"You know where I want to go," she said. At some point, the grand Washington park turned into an ocean with a sky so clear, the horizon blended into the blue sea.

Orlin's smile slowly faded and his sorrowful eyes looked away at the endless water. They had walked across it as if through the park but now they had stopped. Sam stared him down until he looked back up at her pleading eyes and said, "I could never make you stay with me, could I?"

"I'm sorry, Orlin. But if you love me, you'll send me back to him."

He gave her a sad smile and extended his hand. When she took it, the sea went away and the sky became covered by the signs of a coming sunset. They were on a cliff by the Stargate overlooking a grand valley.

And there he was. Jack. Standing beside Daniel looking straight into the sunset.

"Jack! Daniel! It's me! It's Sam..." she yelled, running up to them but Orlin's hand fell upon her shoulder and she stopped. They didn't turn around. They were talking.

"They can't see you Sam. I can't send you back until you hear this," Orlin said.

Sam couldn't hear it as if she were standing behind them. She heard them in a distance, echoing even. "...Heaven left me when she did," she heard Jack say in the faraway tone.

"I don't understand. Why this?" she asked Orlin, walking around Jack and standing right in front of him, looking up into his eyes as he spoke. There was pain there, guilt. And she was the one that had put it there.

"They're on this planet right now, Sam. The Stargate will not engage until after you return. Adrienne will make sure of it. Do you still want to go back? I could leave you here but I can't insure you'll ever be as you were. Parts could be missing. You could remember all you did as Ba'al but not remember Jack. You could forget things. A millisecond could mean years off your life, erased. Is he worth leaving behind eternal salvation?" Orlin spoke.

She still looked straight into Jack's eyes, following his lips as he spoke, as they quivered at the mere thought of her. She put both hands on his face and went to kiss him but Daniel had said something that had scared him and he ran off after Adrienne. He passed right through her as if he were made of light.

Again she was left alone. But for a moment, it was as if he were looking right at her like he'd never before. He hid nothing. He hadn't looked away for fear she might find out the kind of man he was. He feared nothing because all he saw was what he felt when he looked at her... like he was looking into a most beautiful, natural thing that stirred life into him.

For once his eyes hid nothing. And she knew how he felt for her, and be it a chance they could be together again, she'd tell him how she felt too. Not as a goodbye, but a hello... a new beginning.

"I want a second chance, Orlin. I want to feel like I did, even if it doesn't last long. It's all I have left. It's all I really want. But first, I want you to take me somewhere. There's something I have to do."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

It was still night on the planet. Daniel figured night lasted longer for some reason. He wished he had Sam to give him a long explanation why. He could ask Adrienne but it wouldn't be the same. He'd be too distracted as he was whenever Adrienne spoke. She'd become his only companion now.

Jack had gone to sleep in the clearing by the fire. He didn't hear Daniel and Adrienne leave.

"What did you want to show me?" Daniel whispered as they walked through the lush green forest. The vibrancy of the leaves' color shined through the complete darkness of night and shadowing trees.

And then they reached it: a clearing on the other side of what they now figured a plateau. Cliffs and dead ends followed them everywhere. Daniel didn't think the clearing anything special, and then Adrienne pointed to the night sky once hidden beneath an endless canopy.

The third moon was as bright and as large as anything Daniel had ever seen. It's blue-tinted light lit their faces as if a mere day's shadow and cast its spell over them.

He hadn't noticed that Adrienne's hand had reached his until she was so close next to him on the ground that her head lay atop his chest and he found himself stroking her hair absentmindedly. Even after, he continued still.

"Ree? Do I live to see you grow? _Did _I, at least?" he asked sheepishly.

She gave a mixed giggle and responded, "Yeah Danny. You saw me grown."

"Was I like an uncle or something?" he asked somewhat joking. She laughed again.

"No, not at all. I've looked like this for quite some time. You never treated me as a child. You knew I never wanted you to."

"So when... when you first kissed me a while back in that ventilation shaft... Well you said you'd done it so you could read me and tell if I knew where Dionysus was but--"

"You want to know why I did it? If it related to anything between us in the future?"

"Yeah."

She took a moment to think of how she was going to word it and shifted a little atop his chest. "There was this one day. I was 7 years old, and looked a little different than now. It was my rebellious phase and had cut my hair off to my ears and dyed it green. Grew back the next day. But you came to me at my lab and you sat across from me and said, 'Nothing you do or say will ever change how I feel about you.' That's the day I knew I loved you. It never really went away."

He took a minute and smiled then said, "But were we ever..."

"Yeah. Before I was married, the night before actually, you came to my room and we-- well, you know. I knew it was goodbye but it didn't change my situation. My genes told me I had to marry Dionysus. There was nothing I could do. You came to my bedroom a few times after that but--"

"It wasn't the same?"

"Hmm. Never will be. That night was the best of my life, just 'cause you were there," she said, her tone steady as she looked up at the wide open range of stars and moons.

"We had an affair. But why did you tell me I'd always have Janet?"

He could feel her trembling slightly. It hurt her to think of her past. "My marriage and my love for him ended after a year, but you and Janet lasted a lot longer. _I _was the mistress, Daniel."

"But it wasn't the same, was it? Me and Janet?"

"No. You never had what we had."

"Spontaneity? Raw passion?" he joked, trying to change the subject. She'd slipped off his chest and they rested on the ground side by side, facing each other's lustful eyes.

"No, a ventilation shaft full of memories," she laughed along. "But yeah. Passion had a lot to do with it. Why have a mistress when your wife's a beautiful doctor?"

"A shaft full of memories... But it's all different now, isn't it?"

"She's different. She's not your Janet anymore. And I'm not the same Ree. And we don't have a shaft at our disposal."

He paused, thought about it, and decided this was the best thing. "No, we're not," he said and caressed her cheek before kissing her slowly then passionately until it became a struggle for the top until Daniel painstakingly stopped his lips and moved off. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't--"

She stopped too, short-breathed. They both got up and paced a little before they realized it didn't matter and stopped walking and just faced each other again, Ree's hand to her lips. "You kissed me. And you meant it."

"And you kissed me back... A lot," he said, slightly stunned. "Tell me, what am I feeling right now?"

Ree raised an eyebrow and gave a devious smirk before she felt the guilt fall upon her and she stepped away from him. And then he said something that made her stop in her tracks: "I did mean it, Ree. Everything I said, now and on that first day. I don't know what happened in the future but all we have is the present and right now, no matter what you say _will _happen, I could never feel with anyone else as I feel with you right now."

It made her eyes sorrowful but she turned around anyways and ran right back into his arms.

"Make me forget, Daniel. Make me forget everything wrong with the world," she whispered before they fell back onto the floor of the forest clearing, wishing desperately that their noises didn't reach the other side of the forest where Jack dreamt, as usual, of Sam.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The halls of Level 28 were lonely without SG-1. The air smelled of broken dreams and sour-sweet romances, no more than usual. But now a missing presence filled the ventilation shafts. There was danger everywhere.

Nobody could get a lock on Aileia's planet from any Stargate. Teal'c had called on the Tok'ra for help but it would take a few days before a ship could reach the planet. In the meantime, Teal'c and Aileia awaited news while the interrogations began.

Teal'c had protected her but he had to know himself, so he went to the infirmary the next morning and took her to breakfast. If any information might be revealed concerning what happened on the planet might slip, so be it. He knew she'd only tell him what he needed to know. And usually, nobody really _needs_ to know anything at all. That was her response and he'd taken it. But later at lunch, he went to check on her and found her crying on her bed in the infirmary.

"They shot him, Teal'c. Right in the heart, because of a stupid deal. My own people."

A half hour after Teal'c left, a young man dressed as an airmen came to her bedside and asked, "Well, we don't see many in your condition around here. What are you going to name it?"

She was surprised he'd ask something like that so cheerfully seeing how tearful she seemed. "I don't know. They told me it's a boy today. Maybe after his father."

"Try Zagreus," he said bluntly with a wry smile and left. The name stuck out in her mind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART EIGHTEEN:**

--What's really keeping the Gate from opening?

--When's Sam coming back?

--What's Jack dreaming of?

--Did Daniel and Adrienne just sleep together! (They did. That was just a shocked response.)

--What has Dionysus been planning all this time? Was he the airman?

--Is Aileia's child going to be Dionysus' second coming?

--Does he plan to get killed?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't forget to add me to your story alert list so you don't miss a single chapter! And if you'd be kind enough...

**REVIEW!**


	19. Revival

-----------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

_The mystery continues. New details are put into place. Orlin says goodbye. And Jack welcomes back a character most missed._

--------------------------------------------------

_And now…_

**PART NINETEEN: **_Revival_

-------

Daniel and Adrienne woke up floating naked on the water.

"Where are we?" Daniel asked, sleepily waking first and looking around.

"Don't move. You'll fall."

He started to freak a bit as soon as he noticed the large amounts of nothing between him and the water. "Where the hell is there an ocean on this planet! I thought it was on a plateau."

"We're two miles from the campsite, Danny. Calm down."

"Two miles!" he yelled, turning on his side to face her. Automatically, he fell the foot of air between him and the water and landed with force on the surface, sinking quickly despite struggle to swim back up.

When he emerged again, Adrienne still floated a foot above the calm sea, naked and still with her eyes closed and her hands lay comfortably atop her stomach. He took a moment to admire the curves of her thighs and calves and back up to her delicate yet muscular arms.

He swam the small distance between them and looked up at her. "Ree, what did you do?" he asked sternly.

"Well… when I get 'emotionally' excited, I tend to create a lot of excess energy that needs to be released somehow, so… I took us for a little ride around the uh… planet."

"Were we floating at one point while we were-?"

"Oh yah."

She hardly flinched. He looked around again and saw the shore in the distance. Then he looked down and saw his pale body in the clear blue sea. "I'm naked," he said bluntly in an unimpressed tone. "So are you."

"It happens," she responded.

"Oh," he whispered and looked back up at her still floating naked above him, then opened wide as he said, "Oh! Oh, crap!"

"Well that's a lovely thing to hear in the morning," she said calmly.

"You know what I mean. For cryin' out loud, you're my best friends' daughter! Worse! You're my best friend's _clone_!"

"I was made from cloned genes but I am _no_ clone, thank you very much."

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Besides, from what I remember, I shouldn't be complaining," he joked with a coy smile. She smiled too and before she knew it, his hands were on her thigh, pulling her down with him. When she fell on the water, despite floating a mere foot, she made such a splash that it seemed a tidal wave fell before him.

"What the hell was that!" he yelled when he resurfaced.

"Everyone's got a few extra pounds to shed. What do you _think_ happened!" she yelled, splashing water everywhere with her gestures. "Do you have any idea how much force it takes to make a person float over water?"

She swam towards him and wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms behind his neck as she kissed him good morning. Then she broke away and began to walk out of the water as if stairs took her to shore.

"Jesus must have had it hard," he whispered as he watched her go.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack woke up later than he had expected, and more _alone_ than he had expected. He called out for them as highly as he could without drawing unwanted attention but Daniel and Adrienne's voices did not respond.

He got up and started walking within the area around the campsite, calling out for them as he went but nobody responded.

That's when he saw the great light of the sun coming closer and closer to him until like a falling star, the light landed atop the canopies in the distance just near the edge of the cliff by the Stargate.

Jack went white with horror. A great ball of light, not fire, had Descended upon him. So he ran and ran towards it, driven by shear ambition and expectation.

When he reached the Gate, there she was. A naked angel fallen upon herself, curled up on the land's end.

He had always had her in the back of his mind, saw her behind every tree and every corner of the SGC but now as he came closer and closer to the body on the ground, that image of her left his imagination and became corporeal.

"Sam?" he whispered, gently caressing the hair back from her face. But as soon as he touched her, a current of blue electricity went through her like she'd been hit with a soft zat and her eyes, the same electric blue, came to life.

He backed away slowly. "Sam, is that you?" he said, his voice wanting to break.

"Where am I?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Do you know _who_ you are?"

"Do you?" she said and started to sit up when she looked down and saw herself naked. She didn't really seem to care.

Before she could say anything else, he hugged her so hard that she nearly fell over. She didn't really know who he was but there was something about him, something she remembered. Maybe it was the smell of his aftershave from 2 days ago. Maybe it was his touch or his hugs. But she felt him in her soul. She knew him, even if she couldn't remember him.

"Don't be scared. I'm Jack. Do you remember a Jack anywhere in there?" he said as he helped her up. She looked at him as if he seemed familiar but she wasn't his Sam. There was something different about her. It was a familiar different but different nonetheless.

"No. Nothing. But do you know an Orlin? Is he who I'm supposed to find?" she asked. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. Luckily, he was about twice her size so it covered… sufficiently.

They began back to the campsite, Jack explaining what had happened on the way there. Sam noticed Jack's mind was elsewhere afterwards so she said, "I was something to you, wasn't I? Before I… left?"

"You were everything to me, Sam," he responded absentmindedly, his eyes to the ground, his arm around her shoulders as if letting go might make it all a dream again and he'd lose her all over.

"I'm sorry you lost her."

"Don't be silly. You're right here. Never left."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel had made it to shore, finally. Adrienne was already dressed and sitting on a log doing what looked like meditation. She looked exhausted but with a genuine cheeriness in her tone that brought the size of his ego up a few notches.

"Funny little face you got going on there, Ree," he said with a raised eyebrow as he looked for his pants.

"Yeah well funny little birthmark you got there."

"How long were we… away?" he asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

"Well time works differently here. The night is longer. It'd be 5 o'clock on Earth right now but the sun just came up an hour or two ago. So go with it."

He walked over and sat beside her on the log. "Ree…"

"Yeah I know, Danny. It's ok," she said, trying not to really confront anything, avoiding his eyes at all cost. "The Gate's still blocked but Jacob's coming for us in a Tok'ra ship so we should be out soon. Let's get back to Jack, ok?"

He looked at her solemnly. She felt his eyes upon her as she felt so many others things from him and turned to him, her own eyes closed. As she opened them slowly, a tear left them and Daniel took her in his arms. "Ree, what is it?"

"We're never going to get our day, are we?" she asked. "The end is coming, Daniel. Our story's almost over."

"You see something, don't you? You see something bad."

"No. It's a good. But it'll mean the end for us. Any world where I don't exist is a good one."

"No it isn't. Not for me. Not for Jack. Not for S-"

"Sam? Nearly slipped there, Danny," she said, looking away. Then she looked back up with a fake jubilant smile and continued, "Want to see her?"

He didn't understand. His look told her so.

"Come on," she said happily and took his hand, pulling him into the forest. He watched one of his shoes float off as she pulled him closer to revelation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"General Hammond?" a deep voice came from his door. He looked up and there was Teal'c. He had his begging face on which didn't really differ from any other face of his.

"Come in, Teal'c. How's Aileia? Set up a room for her yet?" the old man responded.

"She is for whom I wish to speak."

"Go on."

"Never before have we had to deal with a child being on base. I am not sure if it would be wise to keep her here. I would like to start the search for alternate planets for her to live in, make a life for herself," Teal'c explained.

"You want to set her up off world?"

"Chulak, if possible. I know of many who would look after her. She and her child would be well taken care of."

"That seems fine, if she agrees."

Teal'c sighed. It was actually more like taking in a big breath of strength but he had to say it.

"I'd like to go with her."

Hammond looked up from the papers he was signing and writing and whatnot. "What?"

"I made a promise to her husband that I would look after her. If she does not wish to remain here, I would like to accompany her."

The general lied back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the desk, a hand under his chin pensively stroking.

"Run it by her first Teal'c. We need you here. But if you choose to go, there's nothing I can do. I wish you well."

Teal'c bowed and left. Hammond could see there was something beneath his choice. There was something more. The debt to the husband? Was it the Jaffa revenge thing again? Or was it the woman?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack and Sam sat by the campsite. Sam was so tired she had leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. It brought back memories and a smile his face had not seen in days. He hadn't had the chance to mourn properly. Others would find it a blessing. But there was a mission behind her revival, a point to it that Jack didn't understand.

"Orlin," he whispered. "You here? I need to talk to you. I know you're looking after her. Show yourself."

He looked around. Nothing. Everything was silent. Too silent.

He let her gently slide down onto the log and began to walk gently towards the woods, his P-90 raised cautiously.

"Hello, Jack," he heard a voice say from behind him. He turned around quickly but there was no one there. When he turned back, a figure dressed in white came out from behind a tree.

"You Orlin?" Jack asked, his gun still raised.

"I suppose we haven't met but yes. I am Orlin."

"What's wrong with her?" Jack asked, still refusing to lower his gun.

"Nothing she didn't want to happen."

"What are you talking about? What did you do to her!" Jack yelled as quietly as he could not to wake her.

"I did nothing. She chose it."

"_What_ did she choose?" He was getting aggravated.

"The power of an Ancient."

Jack didn't move, simply lowered his gun. "She's an Ancient? Is this what happened the first time? Is this why Adrienne can do all she can?"

"Somewhat. Most of Adrienne isn't natural. But yes, this restores a large part of the original timeline."

"So Adrienne will still be born… special?"

"That's up to you. I'm done here."

"You care about her."

"As do you. But see, she didn't pick me. She could have. She could have had immortality, but she chose you."

"I don't know what to say to that."

"Say nothing. Take care of her. Oh, and if you harm her, I'll find you," he said with such a smile that made Jack open his eyes in slight fear.

"Hey, wait! Is she going to get her memories back?"

"In time… I hope so."

With that, Orlin turned into a whirl of lights and tentacles and disappeared into the canopy of the forest.

"Jack?" Sam said from behind him. She'd woken. "Who are you talking to?"

"An old friend, Sam. Don't worry. Get some rest and we'll start heading for the Gate. See if it's open again," he said, walking back to her a little calmer.

"I'm not tired. Tell me, was that Orlin?" she insisted as he sat beside her.

"Yeah, that was him."

"Did he tell you why I'm here?" She was eager to know. She'd remembered something, no doubt.

"You're here because of me," he said and looked down from her mystifying blue eyes. They'd started to turn yellow like Ree's. She was turning Ancient.

She brought her hand to his face and caressed his cheek. His eyes were tired. His heart beat steady like an old man looking forward to the end of this chess game. But before he could rest his tired heart, she'd drawn him closer and kissed him. He let his hand wander from his gun towards the small of her back as hers went to lift up his black shirt.

"Sam!" a voice came from the trees. The broke apart quickly but reluctantly. It was Daniel and Adrienne, Daniel still missing a shoe.

Adrienne ran to hug her, leaving Daniel to walk calmly yet shocked to Jack, who had practically jumped up off the log when Adrienne screamed Sam's name.

"Is that--?" Daniel asked, still stunned.

"Oh yah."

"And she's--?"

"Oh yeah."

"And you two were…"

"Not when you keep coming in every chance we get," Jack said through gritted teeth. "So… what were _you_ up to?" he asked with a coy smile.

"Nothing I can tell her father, thank you very much."

"Hey I'm not her father yet."

"Yes and even if you weren't ever, there's no _way_ we're going there… But you're ok with it, right? Me and her -- if anything develops?"

"Ask me when I'm back home and drunk."

Adrienne had let Sam go and she had recognized her right away. Maybe not her face but in that special way she and Adrienne shared now. Kindred souls, Daniel would call it.

"But how?" Daniel asked Adrienne.

"Orlin," Jack responded, his tone not so welcoming to the idea of Orlin saving her. Of Orlin in general, really.

"Hmm. Well we have a small surprise for ya," Adrienne said with a smile.

"You mean she's not all?" Jack asked.

Then Ree pointed up and above the canopy was a cargo ship ready to take them home.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY:**

--What's Jacob going to do when he sees Sam and Jack together?

--What's going to happen with Adrienne, Dionysus, and Daniel?

--Why wasn't Jack happier to see Sam alive?

--What's wrong with him?

--What's Adrienne's plan?

--How has Ascension changed Sam, and how will it help them in the final battle for survival?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**


	20. Lockdown

-----------------------------

**IMPORTANT STORY NOTE:**

_This is a confusing chapter, especially when Adrienne and Aileia have their little talk. It'll all be revealed shortly after but the 'Order' they're talking about is the Order of the Cy-rhen, a _royal_ line of worshippers who followed the teachings of the prophet Ctae (sounds like: "kah-tey") who foretold the birth of Adrienne (later revealed in the sequel that it was because she goes back in time a little too far and meets Ctae in person). They became corrupted later in history and became isolationists with a grudge. They thought the end of humanity would be born amongst their own royal line and kept them locked up, their children born from 'puppet' husbands of the Order. Strange thing, they only bore daughters. All boys are doomed to die._

--------------------------------------------------

_.bad wolf._

-------

**PART TWENTY: **_Lockdown_

-------

Aileia was still awake that night. She couldn't tell what but something was wrong. Teal'c had come in to say goodnight and that was about it. She hadn't seen the young airman till the next morning. The name Zagreus still rung in her ears like church bells that never ceased.

"You should really get some rest, ma'am," one of the night nurses said. "Would you like a sedative?"

"No. It's best my conscience doesn't rest," she had responded. The nurse had disregarded her.

It was hard to tell night from day underground but the atmosphere spoke novels. The people were tired, their voices low -- what little people roamed the weary halls.

Bright and early the next morning, Teal'c showed up with a jubilant smile, one she had yet to see on him. "Colonel O'Neill has returned. He will be here in a few hours, so say the Tok'ra."

She falsely smiled back. He could tell she was tired. "That's wonderful, Teal'c."

"Are you still not well, Aileia?" he asked, sitting beside her bed. She looked down at her hands folded atop her large stomach.

"The day approaches, Teal'c." It wasn't what she really wanted to say at all. She sensed something else.

"Don't worry. I'll be here," he said, placing his hand atop hers. This time her smile was frank for the knowledge that he'd be there gave her some hope of making it out of this with no regrets.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jacob, you son of a bitch! Thank you," Jack said, giving the old man a large hug and enthusiastic pats on the back.

"I'd like to breath at some point, Jack," he responded. When he backed away, he saw Sam standing half naked in the middle of the ring transport with a look like she didn't recognize her own father. And she didn't. "Sam? What's going on?"

He went to hug her but Jack stopped him. "She's not exactly our Sam right now, Jake. Give her a little time."

"What are you talking about?"

Daniel stepped away from Adrienne and said with great reluctance, "She died, Jacob, a little while ago. An Ancient named Orlin brought her back. She just woke up a little while ago."

"What! How long ago did she die?" Jacob was yelling.

"Just a few weeks," Jack said.

"WEEKS? My daughter dies and I find out _weeks_ later?"

"Calm down, Grandpa. She'll be fine. I promise you," Adrienne pitched in, her tone soothing and reassuring. It calmed Jacob down a bit.

"What did you mean she's not exactly our Sam?" he asked.

"She can't remember much. They sent her down on some weird mission from on high or something. She chose to come back this way. She chose to come back period."

"How did she die in the first place?"

Jack looked away. Daniel was about to answer when Jack cut in. "It was my fault," he said. "She was dying. There was nothing we could do. We still don't know what killed her. So I went to find a symbiote. But we were running low on time and the only one left alive where we went was… well it was… Ba'al."

Jacob looked at him like the man that killed his only daughter. "You implanted her with BA'AL?" he yelled. It was corporal punishment for Jack, who loved Jacob like a father himself.

"I had to -- I had to shoot her," he finished timidly, looking straight into the Tok'ra's frightened eyes.

An awkward silence ensued. "She knows?"

"Yeah, she knows," he said as he looked towards her. He walked over to the rings and grabbed her timid, shivering hand and brought her out towards him. Jacob saw their hands intertwine and the smile he shot her.

"I'm fine sir. I'm right here. Never left," she repeated Jack's words to her before with a comforting smile. Jacob caressed her cheek with his hand.

"It must have hurt," he said and Jack thought he was talking to Sam, but then he turned to him, his hand still on his daughter's cheek.

"An open wound that never heals."

They had set off and Daniel and Adrienne had found themselves a corner of the cargo bay floor and Adrienne had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Jack kept shooting them evil looks as if saying, "I'm watching you, buddy. Keep those hands where I can see them." He and Sam stood at the helm near Jacob.

"What's the story on them?" Sel'mak asked out of the blue. "Jacob is vying to know."

"I dunno. They disappeared on me last night. Daniel came back with only one boot," Jack answered absentmindedly. Sam still refused to let go of his hand. She was shivering.

Sel'mak gave a laugh that seemed more of a humorous scoff. Tok'ra really didn't laugh.

"He's not really talking to me right now, is he?" Jack asked.

"Nope." It was a strange word to hear from a Tok'ra.

Jack let it go. He knew he hadn't been shot yet because Jacob always approved of him and Sam as a couple. Maybe now they'd have a chance, a fresh start. No matter how much he wanted it, he felt like he was lying to himself.

"So where are we going?" Sam asked. "Isn't Earth too far away?"

"Next solar system. There's a Stargate there. You can Gate to Earth from there. Use my Tok'ra IDC," Jacob said.

Sam didn't think of him as a father. She didn't think him as family. She only saw Jack in her memory. He was her family somehow. But she knew how much it hurt Jacob and said, "Thanks Dad."

He didn't turn around but she saw him take a deep breath and look up. She squeezed Jack's hand a little harder.

He smiled at her and they joined Daniel and Adrienne on the floor in the opposite corner. Sam fell asleep in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder. Nostalgia floated in the air. It hurt his eyes, or so he told himself.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_Jack's dreams consumed him once more. He hadn't dreamt since the SGC and now that they neared it more and more, his consciousness couldn't hide his inner turmoil any longer. And even that was dark. Blank. It consumed the usual light from Sam's smile. But he heard her still, in the distance. Her voice screamed for him, for help, for salvation. Not her own; for him. She was telling him to run, to get as far away as possible. Even at moments when the darkness seemed to shift, her voice still rang through, repeating the same call to escape over and over. And then he saw it: darkness over him, hidden in swirling lights. Something crept his soul. Something was killing them, slowly. And soon, it would seek to break out into the light..._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam woke up first, some time later, to the sound of Jacob's voice. "We're here," he whispered.

Jack woke up in a jolt. She could tell he was having a bad dream. He was sweating bullets.

She wasn't sure if it was common for him but it frightened her. She sensed something from him but didn't know what. She felt as if she had to do something to make him better.

Before she knew it, she was walking through the Stargate on a desert planet onto the ramp at the SGC. Jack's arm was still around her when she stepped out.

The next part of the day was like a blur. She was sent straight to the infirmary and cleared as soon as the new doctor heard she was originally dead which was practically immediately.

Jack took her around the base, first to the mess hall. He reintroduced her to Jell-O. She picked the red one, which made him… pensive. What if they got something wrong? But she quickly discarded the red and went for her old favorite. It made him smile, wearily.

"What is it?" she asked.

He looked at her with eyes that saw to her soul, to the very center of her core. She loved when he looked at her so. It nearly made her cry that she couldn't remember him. But she'd always know: she truly loved him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne made her way to the infirmary some twenty minutes after Sam had left with Jack for the mess hall. "We meet again, Aileia."

She sat down beside her with a face that turned to ice before the pregnant lady. It was not pity, for she knew Aileia would kill her where she stood before allowing such a thing.

"Adrienne, is it? How are my people?"

"Dead, but they're not your people, are they? _'For all you're worth, let me die a begging soul; let not an incomplete one, for thus I am without thee to guide me back to livelihood_.'"

"You know what I am, then? Well, Daughter, I know what you are too."

"Daughter?"

"You are their daughter are you not? You are the offspring foretold to the prophet Ctae," she said, looking grim. "You are truly a deity my child, do you know? Do _they_ know?"

"No. Are you with the Order?"

"No. The Cyrhens remain oblivious, as usual."

"What of your husband? Is he why you left?"

"Yes, I thought."

"He was a puppet then?" Ree asked seriously. Aileia nodded. "I'm sorry then… Is that why you had to kill him?"

"Yes. And now I'm afraid they've won. I carry his child."

"Hmm. A child."

"What? Yes, a child. Can't you see?"

"Yes, I see. But the future hides him. You do not have a child, darling. Never in history do you bear a boy."

"Then what? It's a girl? The machines were wrong?"

"No. It's a boy. But I do not see its birth, Cy. I'm sorry. Something obscures it."

"No… No don't tell me this. He's all I have left! Don't take it too!"

"I'm sorry, Princess."

"Don't tell them, please don't tell them. Teal'c can't know."

"He'll become your guardian, you know?"

"Is he, now? He would have made a great father for Zagreus--"

Ree stopped and looked up in a snap. It was as if watching an old movie and having the serial killer jump into the shot carrying a chainsaw. "What did you call it?" she asked in fear.

"Zagreus. A soldier here suggested it. It sounded nice."

Ree gulped. She slowly got up and moved back in great unrest, towards the phone on the wall, tripping over medical gear on the way. "This is Adrienne! Get me General Hammond, RIGHT NOW!" she yelled into the phone. The entire medical staff stopped to look at her. Aileia was awaiting a response with wide-open eyes.

"General! Call a lockdown, immediately. Dionysus is in the base. He never left. He's after Aileia's baby. Lock it up NOW!"

Adrienne hung up roughly and went to Aileia's bedside. "Can you move?"

"Yea, 'course."

"Good. Get up. We have to get you somewhere safe, away from the Gate."

"What does he want?"

"Reincarnation, Princess. I'm sorry but your baby was never alive. It was killed the moment it was conceived by the very father."

Aileia wept a bit but she was strong. She sucked it up and got out of bed. "Get me to Teal'c. He needs to know what's going on."

Adrienne nodded and they began to move out of the infirmary as the sirens began to sound and the blast doors to close behind them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam and Jack were on the way to her lab when the sirens began to sound. It had been a good moment. It had been peaceful. And then it went to Hell with the rest of Jack's sanity.

"What the hell's going on?" he yelled as he and Sam hurried inside the lab. The blast doors closed behind them.

"Jack, what's wrong? What is it?"

Hammond came on from the control room and demanded total concealment under Adrienne's orders. So Jack and Sam saw no other option. The sat on the floor of the lab and waited for it to end.

Jack would usually jump at the chance to help but it was pointless. They were locked in, no weapons of any kind.

He hugged her on the cold floor. But she got tired of it. The urge to do something overwhelmed her too: her mission. It was coming to light. It was minutes away.

So she took Jack, lifted him up off the floor, and roughly threw him on the cold metal table in the center of the lab with almost superhuman strength.

"Sam, what are you doing?" he asked, slightly scared.

That's when she climbed onto the table, straddled him, and bent down to kiss him. She broke away and whispered, "My mission," and she went back to tear off his uniform…

-------

Two hours later, Sam was asleep on the metal island in the center of the room beside Jack. Her feet dangled off the edge. But when she awoke, it was all clear.

"Jack?" she said. "Is that you?"

"Sam, what's wrong? Is the lockdown over?" he asked sleepily.

"I know who I am… I remember."

He sat up and looked at her with surprise. "What? Like bits and pieces, or everything?"

"Everything. Most of it. I dunno! How do you know this stuff?"

"Do you remember your father?" he asked. She nodded.

"Do you remember me?" he asked again, a little more sheepishly as he waited her response.

She smiled and tilted her head, caressing his face with her hand. "I could never forget you, Jack. I never did," she whispered. "Just like I never left you. I knew you'd find me."

He sighed and hugged her, the cold of their dog tags hitting their chests. That's when Sam realized she was naked. So was Jack. "Uh… Jack? Why are we naked?"

"Well, figure it out, genius."

Her eyes opened wide and she jumped off the island, desperately looking for her clothes. "Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy…"

"Sam, calm down!"

"You figure it out! I miraculously regain my memory after we sleep together? This was another one of Adrienne's plots! My entire death was _her_ doing!" she yelled. He jumped off the island too and went to calm her down but she was mad. She was tired of being played.

She went to the blast doors and started to pound at it. Her hands started to bleed but she didn't stop. Jack had to tear her away but by now she was hysterically crying.

He held her tightly and she began to calm down, but he was still half naked and she was still only half there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-ONE:**

--Are Sam and Adrienne pregnant now?

--Is erasing Sam's memory a ploy to strip away her inhibitions towards sex?

--Did Adrienne really mean for it to happen like this?

--Where's she taking Aileia? …_if_ that's her real name.

--When's the "darkness" going to leave Jack?

--How are they going to get out?

--What's Daniel doing?

--What of Janet? And Dionysus?

--Is he still on base?

--Will "Zagreus" be born?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**REVIEW!**


	21. Don't Cry for Me

-----------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

_I love this story because there's not really a bad guy. There are factors, not antagonists. The people do what they do because of circumstance. At one point in this chapter, we realize that the Goa'uld have nothing to do with this plot. Ba'al causing Sam's death was really Jack's carelessness. The soldiers that killed Bra'tac are all pawns to a greater evil: ourselves and the way we are brought up._

_Adrienne was never born. She never had convictions of her own despite her independence and spirit, only what Sam taught her. And now, even though she is free of her past, a past she could only escape by going to a time where she was free to _change_ it, her obsession to escape her actions despite them being beyond her control will inevitably drive her to madness._

But these are my views and I am merely 16. I welcome you to interpret "Level 28" as you see fit and feel free to tell me your views via review. I thank you for reading this far. And to the following people for keeping up with these seemingly never-ending adventures and adding me to their story alert list:

**Anaika Skywalker, CeltAngel, Chezza, dark3princess, ElDani, fancymemad, Grub5000 SJ Fan, harrywandless, helen8uk, jestlilome, JoSG1fan, Katrell RavenHawk, katy1986, Kit37, linkinparkgundam, Matt1969, Matts-Girl1, meowx2, Moonrays and fridays, NadineCarter, Nibikko, novastar22, picco, Quarkie, roseofthegate, sea2209, selache51, Spamurai, stargazzr8-28, StupidMajor, stusue, trtlsoup2001, **and** x-izzles-x.**

--------------------------------------------------

_**10,000 hits since May 26, 2006…**_

-------

**PART TWENTY-ONE: **_Don't cry for me..._

-------

NOTE: Some parts of this chapter are best read to the sounds of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." It's a tear-jerker. Consider yourselves warned.

Daniel had gone home before the lockdown had been initiated. As soon as he walked through the door, he just slammed head first into his couch and fell asleep right on the dusty cushion, embracing the dryness of his bed. He'd never find out how long he slept for nor did he care to know.

A harsh yet hesitant knock came from his door. In his sleepy daze, he woke up to open it. An omen stood in the doorway. She would not bring good news.

Janet.

"Hey," he said, taking aback. "Janet, come in."

She didn't let him finish. "No. You have to come out _here_. We've gotta go to the SGC. Now!" she said, determined.

"What's going on?" he asked, realizing his shirt was all askew, possibly missing buttons in places Ree had ripped them off. He still missed a shoe and hadn't even noticed it as he walked out of the base. It explained the strange looks. And he wasn't sure how it had happened but he was missing a small chunk of hair. He wondered if Adrienne was radioactive and raised an eyebrow.

"Adrienne told me to get you as soon as you got back. That I couldn't let you go home, Come on if you want to live!"

He gave her a small smile and joked, "You'd make an excellent Terminator, you know that?" She didn't find it too funny given Adrienne's arrival. She didn't find anything funny any more. Her exterior was so cold, so hidden under fear and grief.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked, pulling on his arm towards her car before he could even answer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam and Jack stayed awake the rest of the night in opposite sides of the room, leaning up against opposite facing walls. She hugged her knees and rocked back and forth, looking to the floor in-between them.

He looked at her. Just her. There was no one _but_ her to him. She refused to accept it.

"Where ya gonna run to now, Sam? There's nowhere else, no one else. Just you and me," he said.

She looked up at him. "She's doing this to us, Jack. We're her pawns. She's messing with us. Everything that's happened is _her_ doing!"

"No, Sam! There's no one else here. Forget about the world! It's just you and me," he said almost calmly. His voice had the feel of surrender. He was giving up on her.

Sam gave a sharp gasp like a scoff just before she'd begun to cry. But then she calmed down. She let a single tear escape and looked straight at him, got up, and sat down beside him on the cold floor, resting her head on his shoulder as she always did.

"Are you alright now?" he asked, tired.

"I'm me, for the most part… if that's what you mean," she responded.

"Sam, what do you remember?"

"Stop asking that. It's hard to know. But I know who I am and that's enough."

"No it's not. What do you remember of dying?" he insisted. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him in awe. How dare he bring up tragic memories?

"I remember… I remember reaching for a gun and shooting my way down the stretch to the control room. I remember the pain of him leaving me to die on the floor -- I remember the look in your eyes when you held up the gun that shot me. And I remember… saying goodbye," she said, her voice croaking under the memory and the weight of salty tears.

He was breaking down too but more at the knowledge that it was him that put the pain in her eyes. He hugged her tightly on the floor and kissed her forehead. "Sam, I'm sorry. I never… I never meant for this to…"

Her voice got firm again and she pulled back. "It wasn't you, Jack. You didn't kill me. Adrienne did. It's what I've been trying to tell you."

He looked at her with extreme worry. It couldn't be true. He thought she was delirious at first but what if she was right? What if they were pawns in this chess game?

"Sam, are you sure? Think about what you're saying."

"She spoke with Orlin. She planned my return a long time ago. He only saved me because she wanted him to because she _knew_ I was going to die. You didn't know what was killing me because it was _her_."

Realization hit him like a brick. "Why would she want to kill you? Why would she need for you to Ascend?"

"Power, perhaps? Maybe she wanted me gone… She wanted me to miss something. Did anything happen while I was gone, something I don't know? What is she trying to change about the original timeline?"

"I don't know… I--" He stopped and thought about it. "Janet. Janet was taken… by rogue NID agents, she said. Dionysus escaped. Uh…"

"What was that planet you found me on? What was so special about it?" she asked.

He looked straight into Sam's downtrodden eyes and whispered, "Aileia…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Aileia waited in Hammond's office. She didn't know where the general had gone or where Adrienne had skulked off to. All she knew was that she was alone without Teal'c to protect her, her strong and honorable guardian.

She knew it was foolish but she was never one to stay in place, never one to hide. So she did the one thing she knew how to do. She escaped, perhaps from the only shelter she'd ever know, but she escaped nonetheless in search of companionship.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne ran to the control room. Something called her there. She often heard the Stargate's moves in the back of her head. They were kindred. Made. But his was different. The Gate didn't call. _Someone_ did.

So she answered the unnerving call. She walked through the halls as if in trance, the doors opening before her, sensing her every step closer to absolution. And then she heard it… over the speakers:

"Come to me, Ariadne… I need you here with me…" a sweet voice called forth. It sounded so loving, not demanding, and it bore into her soul. And then she was at the control room, facing the Gate.

It was empty but she knew her angel was always over her shoulder, standing watch. Was he an angel? She didn't even know anymore.

And there he was, standing over her shoulder. "Welcome, love," he said.

She turned around and her breath went away. He smiled down at her, now a full man. "Dionysus, I…"

He took a step closer till his nose was an inch from hers. One hand ran down her right arm. The other pushed back a strand of lose hair covering her eyes, and he caressed her cheek. It made her quiver as it always did. His touch felt not there and not gone. She felt him so deep within her, despite his gentle touch. It was killing her.

And then she thought of Daniel and she snapped out of it. She breathed in deeply and took a step back against the consoles. She was cornered.

"You cry, Ariadne?" he laughed. "You thought I wouldn't remember? It's hard to forget what we were born to do. But don't cry for _me_, beloved. I've left _you_ once before."

Adrienne's breathing turned to gasps. She tried not to remember the past. She'd tried to run from it, kill it, drown it in tears… But there it was, facing her after so much effort and so many trials to her humanity.

"I don't cry for you," she said. "I cry for what I do and did to never see this face in my head again."

He looked surprised, even raised an eyebrow and moved back. "Why do they fear me? Why do _you_? Tell me!" he yelled. He feared himself, something she was not expecting.

Her gasping and tears stopped. "You don't really remember, do you? You're not him. You're not the man I knew."

"I am! It's me! It's Dionysus!" he cried, not really sure himself. "I died for you, Ariadne. I cheated death to come back for you but you were gone. You had left me for another! So I retreated. I hid till I could find you again."

He wasn't whom she thought. "You're not him, child. No matter how much you grow on the outside, you're still a child. You know nothing of what happened because that wasn't you. That part of you died when he did. Start over. Go on. Leave us and find your place."

"MY PLACE IS WITH YOU!" he yelled, moving upon her once more. The edge of the console dug into her thigh but the pain in her heart overwhelmed it all. "Why did you run from me? You hid from me! I tried to find you but you were too far away! I saw you with him!"

She felt pity embrace her and her hand went to his shoulder. She knew he could hurt her with a single touch but it seemed a single word would do the trick a thousand-fold. "I can free you, child. I came to do so because of how _much_ I love you. But know you can never be the man he was because you are still pure. There's still humanity in you. They fear you because they don't know you as I do. They don't know what you once were. You are nothing compared to that. And I hope you understand what I have done for you someday," she said solemnly. It was goodbye, but something in his eyes could not accept it.

She looked over her right shoulder to the Stargate. It had begun to turn. Chevrons began to dial. And alarms began to sound.

"What are you doing?" she asked, desperate.

"No matter what you say, I can't deny it, Ariadne. You are mine as I am yours. I know it in my blood, in every cell. I'm going back to my cell, but I'm not going alone. Either you come with me or I destroy your precious mountain of steel."

The Gate activated and the event horizon was sent forward. She felt her heart caught before it and wished she _had_ been standing on that ramp rather than having to face her demons. When she looked back towards him, it seemed he awaited an answer.

And then a voice came from the stairs to the control room. Its words echoed in the void in Adrienne's head. "She's not Ariadne. She's not who you want."

He turned around and there was Aileia. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am she. My genes are spawned from Ariadne's. From the original. This woman is an imposter, a false god," she said. Adrienne stood frozen. "Before your mate met you, she had a child with a man named Theseus. This child was cursed. She could only bear daughters, as all the men were born without a soul and dead. Her children bore children, all awaiting your return, milord."

"Stop it. Make her quiet!" he yelled.

"The child I bear is of this line. It's a boy… without a soul. And he's waiting for you," Aileia stopped. She placed a hand upon her stomach and cringed. Despite the hatred she felt for her line, she loved the child as would a mother.

"No… I can't do it," he said, a little calmer. He looked upon Aileia with a sweet smile. And then he turned stern and dark and afraid. "I _won't_ do it."

"Be reborn, Dionysus. It's the only way to start over… I won't let you turn into that _thing_. You can be human! You can be free of all those memories," Adrienne pleaded. Her eyes stung with salt.

Dionysus was… confused. Lost. His mind wandered but he couldn't understand what Aileia was asking. He'd have to kill himself to be reborn. He'd have to die again. And his child's mind could not accept such a thing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel knew that if the mountain was in lockdown, the only way in was through the side access shafts. The codes wouldn't have been changed and they'd done it before. He could get in. He helped Janet down and before he knew it, they were walking the halls of Cheyenne Mountain.

"The control room," he said. "We need to override the lockdown. Maybe find someone."

"All the offices are locked. There isn't anyone in the halls, Daniel. This happened at night when most people were gone. Anyone left here is locked inside there… or they left before anything could happen," she said, wiping away a tear.

He stopped and turned around. "What is it?"

"It's a ghost town, Daniel. What if they're all dead? Why is everyone gone?" she asked.

"No, hey. Come on. We'll find them. Level 28, right? Let's go," he assured her in the sweetest, calmest voice he could muster. He took her cold hand and led her down into bowels of the mountain and the very core of pain in all their hearts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrienne tried to override the computers quietly with her mind but the passwords had to be activated and the clacking of the keyboard drew him to the monitors. He pushed her away and saw the Iris close.

"NO!" he yelled and made it stop just moments from fully closing. It struggled to close and the scraping of metal could be heard from inside the control room. Aileia gasped.

The Iris was being pulled towards them, the slices of titanium bending and snapping open like the lid of a can exploding outward.

"No! You're causing a gravitational pull! That Gate is underwater!" Ree yelled, trying to push him away but he was melted into the floor, his hands so heavy that they dug right into the metal console as if it were sand.

"Close the bulkhead!" Daniel screamed, running up with Janet behind Aileia who stood frozen at the sight of the creaking Gate.

"I can't! The controls are sheet metal," Adrienne yelled back, then turned to Dionysus and pleaded in tears of coagulated terror, "Stop! I'm begging you! I'll do whatever you want! Just please, DON'T KILL THEM!"

Nothing happened. The Gate still crept and the field holding the water back still crept until slices of the Iris went flying off from the Gate towards them, blasting right through the glass and straight into Dionysus' abdomen, splitting him open.

He froze and looked down, his mouth open as he tried to grasp at breath, at sweet life. Janet let out a sheer shout of horror that echoed throughout the mountain. Scientists in their labs shriveled into a corner. General Hammond knelt down in the mess hall with the others and prayed.

-------

Adrienne yelled out his name but it was too late. There was nothing she could do. She tried to help him, to put the blood back in but it formed puddles over the sunken command. She held his face and gasped for breath, hiding her crocodile tears.

"NO!" she yelled, weeping as she caressed his face with her bloody hands.

But with his last ounce of strength, he lifted his right arm to hers and wiped away a single tear. "Don't-- Don't cry for me… beloved," he said in a final gasping breath and he fell back, held a standing corpse by the large sheet of metal running through him.

A small ball of light left his dead chest and floated towards Aileia who smiled at it as it floated before her and went straight into her stomach. She gasped as she felt the baby give a kick.

As soon as Dionysus' hand fell from Adrienne's face, the Gate began to leak water until an entire ocean slipped into the Gate room in a large rushing tunnel of crystal blue death.

"Adrienne, stop it!" Daniel yelled and Ree quickly extended both her hands, palms forward as if holding back the wall of ocean trying to enter. Like a glass wall, it was stopped but the strain was too much for her. Her knees and her arms were giving out under the great pressure.

Daniel, Janet, and Adrienne stood shocked. Then something snapped in Daniel. He couldn't help thinking of their tryst at the lake on Aileia's planet. He thought of her playful words: …_when I get 'emotionally' excited, I tend to create a lot of excess energy._

He smiled and ran to her, dodging flying debris and cold drops of water that escaped her slipping shield. He looked around frantically for a way in and slipped under her arm so he could stand before her and face her and kissed her passionately.

It took her breath away, his warm hands. It sent such a surge through her that her hands didn't need to be held high and they went to his face. Her eyes opened wide and turned to a pure blue that made her freeze and Daniel broke away. He tried to get as far back as possible. They all waited for what they knew to be a glorious end with eyes held high and strong, fearless hearts secretly praying to a god they didn't believe could hear.

"I'm opening the doors to the Gate room! I can't hold the incoming pressure anymore!" Adrienne yelled and surely enough the bulkheads on either side burst open and water rushed through the empty halls of Cheyenne Mountain.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jack? Do you hear that?" Sam asked in her lab. It was rushing sound like smooth on metal, breaking the comfortable silence of their long embrace.

It slammed into the bulkhead door like a wild animal gone rabid then kept sloshing down the halls in stampede. Sam gasped and then felt sounds of creaking metal above them. They were a floor below the Gate room.

"Oh my God," he answered breathlessly. "What is that?"

And then through the ventilation shafts, the water spread and through the vents, it came creeping up on those locked like animals in cages throughout the base.

But in this little cell, this lab Sam had known for so long, her tears blended with the salty ocean as her eyes refused to leave Jack's.

"Is this goodbye?" she asked just as the water reached their stomachs.

"No," he said with a smile. "If I'm to die today, I die in your arms… and that's a good death. A good death…"

And the water swallowed them without remorse, taking the salty tears and spreading them through the cold cement of the sinking base so everyone could feel a tiny bit of their love watching over them as they sank too…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-TWO:**

If I told you Adrienne was the bad guy all this time, would it have make you question everything that's happened? What if I told you this wasn't goodbye? What if I said fairy tales aren't that far off course?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"_The end is coming, Daniel. Our story's almost over." --Adrienne._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**This is dedicated to someone I truly love and to all my fans who've read this far. **

_Pink Floyd. Wish You Were Here..._

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,  
blue skies from pain.  
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?  
A smile from a veil?  
Do you think you can tell?  
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?  
Hot ashes for trees?  
Hot air for a cool breeze?  
Cold comfort for change?  
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?  
How I wish, how I wish you were here.  
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,  
Running over the same old ground.  
What have we found? The same old fears.  
Wish you were here.

-----------------------------------------

_Tell me what you think._

**REVIEW!**


	22. Because

-----------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

_I'm sorry for all the sadness, for all the tragedy. This part is something that was never in the original plan but good things never are. In this chapter, there are no Goa'uld, no Ancients, no death. After so many oceans-worth of tears, I bring you… _

_The Proposal Scene._

--------------------------------------------------

-------

**PART TWENTY-TWO: **_Because_

-------

"Adrienne!" Daniel yelled as he saw her fall to the floor of the control room. The Gate had closed but the damage had been done. Cheyenne Mountain, Level 28 and down, was flooded, its citizens trapped in impenetrable cages of cement and steel doors.

The only ones left untouched stood shocked behind Daniel, two lonely women with broken hearts. One had lost her future over a man. One had been given a new future with a new purpose, a new reason to care about anything at all. And then there was Daniel and Adrienne, lost ripples in time.

"Don't… don't touch me," she whispered hazily but he was already knelt down beside her. She couldn't see him. Her eyes were too heavy to open.

As soon as his light touch reached her face, a surge of energy sent him flying back, spinning before he fell to the floor in a loud bang. Even hours later, he'd still twitch at the sight of anything electrical.

"Daniel!" Janet yelled and went to help him but he gestured for her to stay back. He instead painstakingly got onto all fours and crawled back to Adrienne and damn it, he tried to touch her again. And this time, she only replied with a gentle smile.

She laughed and tried to get up, her eyes stinging now worse than ever. But when she opened them, the ribbons of light were gone. "Daniel, something's wrong," she said.

"Well yea, Ree. You did just stop a flood from hitting us," he responded with newfound glee.

"No… No, Daniel, where's Sam?" She sounded alarmed, grabbing his shirt and pulling him towards her. "Where're Mom and Dad? I can't hear them!" She was getting frantic and Daniel was getting scared. "Were they downstairs?"

But before he could answer, she pushed him out of the way and ran to the stairs. As soon as she reached Level 28, she saw it. "It's flooded!" she yelled.

"Yea, Ree. The water's in the hallways. It's fine."

"What about the ventilation shafts?" she asked at the foot of the wet stairs looking up at the 3 survivors.

He raised an eyebrow. "Hon, I don't think now's the time to be thinking of…"

"The water can get in through the shafts, Daniel!" she yelled, turned around, and dived straight into the flooded floor.

"Is she insane?" Aileia yelled behind Daniel, eyes wide open.

Daniel smirked, lowered and shook his head disapprovingly. "Yea, that's pretty much right."

Ree swam through the water as quickly as per her ability, her deep breath still unexhausted even as she neared Sam's lab. Something called to her. It was Jack's voice. _A good death_, it said in the far distance. But she refused to accept that. She got tired of swimming quickly and landed on the floor, running underwater for the stairs.

She was nearly there. _Just hold on, _she begged to herself. And then she felt it. Something slipped away.

She stopped, realizing the lives she was risking to save two, just two. She closed her eyes and focused everything she had left. The Stargate started to turn again and the water receded back to whence it came. But it was pointless. They were still trapped in their labs.

At least three floors had been flooded. It couldn't have been more than a few dozen and still she fought to save them. To save two and risk others was as painful as saving two dozen and losing two.

So she tried and tried but even though the halls were cleared and she knew Sam's lab was just ahead, it was too late. She had nothing left to give.

And she walked to the door of the lab and placed her hands on the cement, sobbing as she lowered her head in defeat.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though the water had quieted everything and they stood on her table where not mere hours before they had made love, there was something in his eyes that made Sam broke off from their hug and kissed him, giving him one last breath of air before she jumped off the table and walked to the door.

She placed both hands on the cement and prayed. She prayed to save Jack, to save herself, to see Ree once more, to bring Daniel coffee in the morning one more time, to get another chance at getting Teal'c to drink milk, to ask General Hammond how his granddaughters were, to go kayaking with Janet and Cassie…

And then a miracle happened. She found the strength to melt a hole in that door so large that Jack went sliding with the rest of the water into the hallway on his back like a dog wanting his tummy scratched. He even had the same pitiful blank look.

When he looked up and the water had cleared, Sam and Adrienne stood firmly set as if the door still held between them, forehead to forehead and hand to hand, their eyes shut tightly.

_Jack… Daniel… Teal'c… Hammond… Janet… Cassie… Jack… Jack…_

And before he knew it, every blast door in the base was opening as if being ripped open and water spilled out into the halls, finding its way back up to the Stargate.

Soon only droplets were left and Jack watched in childish amazement as the little gobbets flew around him, reflecting in the green emergency lighting like halos to lost angels.

And the Gate shut off. And they were safe.

Jack smiled like he hadn't in years. He went to get up, to reach Sam, but they were still held together, still refused to open their eyes.

"Sam? It's ok now. Come on guys, you're scaring me," he said, cautiously walking towards them.

"Stay away. This has to be done," Adrienne said, but her voice was elsewhere as if heard through the speakers… and there were two. Their voices had blended. Their mind had joined, and Jack began to fear as he had when he'd first heard their minds were one: what if they couldn't be separated?

"Adrienne, don't do anything stupid," he cautioned.

They smirked. "I wouldn't be your daughter without my own file cabinet full of stupid mistakes, Father," she answered back, in her own voice. She broke from Sam and turned to Jack, who took her into a big hug.

"Damn it's good to see you," he said, and then he saw Sam still standing as if Adrienne had never left and he broke from his daughter callously. "What's going on? Did _she_ do this?"

Adrienne looked away from him. "There're some things she needs to work out. Both of you," she said and turned away. "There are things… left unsaid, undone."

She started to walk back to the stairs and up to Level 28, leaving Sam stiff as a board. Jack sighed and went to her. He put his hands as Ree had, forehead to forehead, and he closed his eyes. By the time he exhaled that sigh, he began to dream, to feel…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Sam!" he called out, but they were no longer in a place where sound had any meaning. He stood atop an ocean, walking as if there weren't nothing holding him up. _

"_Hey," he heard a solemn voice before him. It was definitely Sam. He'd grown to detest that tone and the feeling of not being able to help. "Where were you? It's been a while. Time works differently here."_

"_Where are we? Why is it so dark?" he said. "Why can I see you?"_

_She looked up with her teary eyes at the moon. It was full and judging down over them. But the cool air sent it all away. He didn't know how, in a place where time and sound could have no base, he could still feel a cool air and her touch on his hand. _

_He smiled at her so caringly, caressing her face. "Sam, what are we doing here? We're ok now. We can leave here."_

"_No Jack. We have to talk."_

"_Well we can do that out there. I don't trust my head. Who knows what could pop up?" he said with a devious smirk. Her face was still solemn._

"_I've had a lot of time to think about it and Jack… we can't let Adrienne be born."_

"_What? How can you say that?" He broke away. "She's our daughter, Sam. Remember all those plans? You were going to see all her school plays and I was gonna be the soccer mom and we'd live somewhere with a yellow kitchen…"_

"_Jack, stop it!" she yelled. Her high tone was lost in the wind. "Think of what can happen if something that powerful is born? I died so I could bring back the gene, so I could save us. We don't need her to save the planet anymore. It's just us now."_

_He looked at her like she was a stranger, a cold-hearted product of a scientific mind. "Damn it, Sam, she's our daughter. I wasn't there the first time. Don't take that from me."_

"_Jack, you have a choice. But you gotta understand. If she's born, people will die. There's a chance she'll turn… a chance she'll suffer and come to break everything we've ever fought for," Sam said in tears. _

_Her tears fell down onto the ocean and they rippled so loudly that it seemed a pin had dropped. And then he realized. "Sam, why are we here?"_

"_What are you talking about, Jack? Don't change the subject!"_

"_No I think we really do. Are these your tears?" he asked, gesturing towards the vast ocean. "Why are we here Sam? I know you. This isn't your mind. These are your fears."_

_She looked down at where her shoes reached the dark waters. "They're yours," she whispered. _

_He couldn't take it anymore and he hugged her tightly and shut his eyes. "I won't let you. No. Not like this. I'm taking you away from this, Sam," he said. "I won't do this to you. I won't let you give up. Not on us. Not on Ree. You hear me?"_

_But when he opened his eyes, she wasn't there and he hugged thin air. He was in a kitchen, yellow. And he smiled. _

_He felt someone looking at him and turned around. There she was with a huge smile, her arms extended for him to embrace her. "I'm over here," she said, still smiling so widely that it seemed to brighten up the room. She was dressed in a sundress and her hair reached her shoulders, pushed back with yellow clips. _

"_I knew you'd find me..." she said as he hugged her and spun her off her feet. "Welcome home, Jack. I've been waiting for a long time."_

_He laughed. "I got held up at work."_

"_We have to go back, you know?" she said._

"_I don't want to leave this. Sam, my resignation hit that desk a week ago. It can still happen. You can still have both."_

"_What about you?" she asked. They went to sit down at the white, wooden, roundtable by the kitchen. He refused to let go of her hand. It housed a ring. This was what she wanted. This was what he knew he had to do, for him _and_ for her. _

"_I love you, ok? You know that. Whatever we decide after this, I'm going to be there whether or not you like it. Damn it, Sam, do you know how long I've been wanting to ask you this?"_

"_Ask me what?"_

_He smirked and closed his eyes, still holding onto her hand. When he opened them, they were in the Gate room surrounded by people. Everyone they knew and loved… Daniel, Teal'c, Hammond, Janet, Cassie, Adrienne, and even Jacob all surrounded them. And then there stood their oldest friend, the Stargate, looking over at him as he knelt down on one knee on the ramp that had brought them together. _

"_Samantha Carter… would you marry me?" he asked, smiling up at the deep blue of her eyes as he'd seen her day after day in that damned briefing room, remembering the trials and the subtle moments leading up to this. _

_She cried. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign. She looked down at his war-stained hands and her hair fell down over eyes. "Jack, I…"_

"_Don't marry the colonel. Don't marry the idea of what we could be. Marry me because you know I'd die before I hurt you again, because you know that even if I don't have a clue what you're saying, I'll still listen, because I've been right there for nearly a decade watching you suffer through all this, never leaving your side because I could _never_ no matter how hard it got… and because I honestly _hate_ blue Jell-O."_

_Her tears went to sobs. He got off his knee and went to lift her chin cautiously, only to find a smile greeting him and the people around them dissipated into the wind. "I…"_

"_What?" he asked. "Sam now is not the time to be speechless. Say anything. Talk geek! Tell me the secrets to the universe! Just talk to me."_

"_I do... I will," she shouted gleefully and got up on her tip-toes to kiss him. _

And when she opened her eyes, they were back in that same empty hallway of a flooded base surrounded by the same dreary gray walls they called home.

"Regret it yet?" she asked him in-between passionate kisses.

"Never."

"Really? Because see I honestly think you love blue Jell-O."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because _I_ love blue Jell-O, and you love me."

"Fine. But I'm still teaching her curling."

She smiled and broke away, taking his hand and leading him up the stairs after Adrienne. It seemed only seconds had passed but all 4 waited for them at the top with smiles and raised eyebrows.

She looked back at him and decided to keep it to herself, no matter how much she wanted to scream it from the very top of the mountain.

"Ree, get a message through the speakers. Tell everyone to get themselves to the surface. We're done here," she said and headed up the stairs.

Jack stayed behind with his silly smirk. Daniel found it puzzling. "What's with the smile?" he asked.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," he responded gleefully and said, "Keep an eye on her," before going up to follow Sam, Aileia, and Janet.

--------

"Ree, you ok?" Daniel asked the next day. Adrienne was still in the control room. He didn't think she'd ever left the base. They'd managed to save nearly everyone. Two casualties still didn't make it through. "Ree?"

"Yea, Danny, what is it?" she responded without turning away from the Gate.

"I asked if you were ok but it's obvious you're not."

"It's gone, Daniel."

"What is? The Gate? We'll get it back up and running again. You saved a lot of people, Ree. Don't forget that."

"No, not that. The… My… Parts of me are gone."

"Is this one of those 'A part of me died when he did' things because I had to hear enough of that from Jack a few days ago."

"The vision. The vision is gone. I can't see time anymore. It doesn't exist."

"Well who really needs it?" he joked, refusing to let his spirits drop.

"I do! It's what tells me I'm still connected to my original timeline."

And then his eyes turned to sadness again, worry even. "What does that mean?"

"I'm never born. I did it, Daniel. I'm never born," she sounded almost glad to hear it. She turned around to face him and he saw what she meant. Her eyes were the same blue as Sam's. She was human, at least to a nearer extent.

She gave a laugh almost like a scoff and jumped into his arms. He hugged her back but he knew now what that meant.

She could never go back.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-THREE:**

I'll let you figure this one out yourselves. Just know this: the end is not necessarily here. There are questions left unanswered and hidden secrets to reveal.

--What was Adrienne's plan? Is it over? Where will she go now, and will Daniel be left behind?

--Will Sam and Jack get their happy ending? Will the shadow in Jack stay hidden long enough for him to die in the sequel or will it rise to spoil their plans?

--Is Dionysus really gone? Would it be so bad to give a bad guy a second chance to be good?

--And finally… what of the future? Is it ever going to be the same or will Adrienne give up trying and let them all make their own fates?

YOU DECIDE.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_Tell me what you think._

**REVIEW!**


	23. Permission to Love

-----------------------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

_The end is nearly here. I'm sorry but chapters will be updated more quickly so keep tuned in and make sure to keep up with the events. Even after so much has happened, the best is yet to come. We're still chapters away from discovering the truth about Adrienne. And we say our final goodbye._

_The end is coming… June 2006_

--------------------------------------------------

_Before reading this chapter, you should realize something: if Jack wouldn't take Sam when she offering herself as a cavewoman in the first couple of episodes of SG-1, what could have changed that he took advantage of a woman with no memory? Is the Jack we once knew gone? Or was this ever our Jack to begin with?_

-------

**PART TWENTY-THREE: **_Permission to Love_

-------

**Two days later --- Mid-September 2004**

Sam sat on her bed, her laptop open on her lap and her TV on mute, its light flashing before her in the cold night. Realizing she had been dead merely a few days ago, she scoffed and looked up from her energy consumption figures. There was an infomercial playing on TV for some new way to lose weight so she scoffed it off, closed the laptop, and went to the kitchen for something caffeinated to drink, humming to herself the first thing that came to mind.

When she came back, with her piece of chocolate in hand, there was a new presence in the room. She felt watched. "Hello?" she said. "Ree, is that you?"

Out of nowhere, Adrienne appeared as if she were being reintegrated bit by bit before her. "You called?"

"Damn it, Ree. You scared me."

"Yeah well, Dad told me to keep an eye on you tonight. And how'd you know it was me?" Sam laughed and went back to sit on the bed. Ree sat on the edge facing the TV and raised an eyebrow. "Feeling the flab, Sam?" she joked at the commercial, staring at the chocolate in her mother's hand.

Sam turned off the TV and Adrienne reluctantly went back to what she was sent to do. "Why does he want you to watch me? And what the hell are you doing out of the base?" Sam asked, going back to her figures.

"Still don't trust me, eh?" Her tone was playful but Sam really didn't trust her as she once did.

"First of all, last time I did, you killed me. And secondly, don't change the subject. What's he up to?" she asked, not bothering to take her eyes off the simulation.

"Ring shopping, I'd imagine," Ree said, got up, and went to the kitchen calmly despite being accused of murder by her own mother. "And I _had_ to kill you, darling. You didn't leave me much of a choice."

"Ring shopping?" She was more alarmed to that than anything else. "What the hell's he thinking?"

"I think he wants to make it special or something. You never told me how he proposed."

"Well I can honestly say it was like a dream."

"Yes, love. That much I figured. Details!"

Sam raised an eyebrow. It seemed too much like late-night girl talk to her and she wasn't in the mood to share _anything_ with Adrienne. If anything, she'd been cold to her for a while, and with reason.

"Don't bother me, Adrienne. I have work to do," she responded, going back to the screen.

"Ugh. You're impossible. You come back from the dead, get engaged, your entire office sinks, and you want to work?" She got up and walked around the bed to the bathroom. She wanted to see how it'd all changed. Not much had, which she found utterly pitiful.

Sam still ignored her. And then she stopped typing and looked up at the blank TV. "How did you get married?"

"How I got married?" Ree poked her head in from the bathroom. It didn't seem a good topic of discussion for her. It brought back bad memories.

"To Dionysus. I'm assuming he was the only one."

"Well no but it's just interesting you ask."

"How come?"

"Because you're my mother. Mothers don't ask their daughters advice on wedding coordination. Besides, it was kind of against my will. Sorry if I didn't pay attention to the décor," she said and walked out the bathroom, jumping onto the center of the bed and beginning to read a few of Sam's paper that had been scattered throughout. "Do you ever actually use this bed? Doing the Mulder thing?"

"Was I there, for the wedding I mean?" Sam asked seriously.

Adrienne looked up. "That doesn't matter now," she said and looked away, pretending to stare at some papers. "How is it you have work? The base is flooded! It won't be operational for months!"

"Yea about that, where are you guys staying?"

"Us aliens you mean? Well my room wasn't flooded. It was above 28. So I'm good for a little while. But the noise is incessant."

"Putting the doors back up?" Sam laughed.

"No, General Hammond yelling over the phone at some guy named Bob for not getting them a jet of some kind. Or it could have been something to do with _the_ Jets. I dunno."

Sam laughed again. And then she veered back on topic. "Why wasn't I at your wedding? I want to know."

Ree's smile went away. "You were… You had work to do," she said quickly, cleared her throat and changed the subject again. "Oh! Dad and I feel kind of bad that you were um… dead for your birthday so he's planning something to that extent too."

"But why does he need you to watch me? It's 4 in the morning," Sam said, looking at her clock on the night table.

"Well honey if the base weren't flooded, where do you think you'd be?"

"Oh man. Do you think he's going to recreate it?"

"Recreate what?"

"The way he proposed. It was in the Gate room."

"You're both inside each other's heads, capable of creating any panorama in the freakin' universe and you go the Gate room? Have I mentioned you have no lives?"

"It was nice though. Everyone was there. He got on one knee and everything, and you know how he is about his knees."

Adrienne started laughing so hard she nearly fell out of the bed. "Where else did you go?"

"The kitchen."

"You and your damn yellow kitchens. I bet you he's going to want to put some crappy Simpsons wallpaper in the baby's room."

"What?" Sam snapped up. "What baby? What… Simpsons?"

"That what you did when I was born. He wasn't there but you said the wallpaper reminded of him. It was a little trim around the room of Maggie Simpson curled up with a teddy bear. Everything was yellow and blue. It was kind of cute if I hadn't looked how I do now."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No. I think you thought it was nice. You always tried to give me little mementos of him. The room, the name, the little trinkets that reminded you more than me."

"The name? His last name? Yea I've been wondering. Why 'Adrienne?'"

"You'll find out tomorrow. Well... tonight," she said, gesturing to the time.

"I'm not even tired," Sam said. "Why aren't I tired?"

"I killed you remember?"

A pause. "I opened those doors, didn't I? The day of the flood. That was me?"

Adrienne didn't respond, simply stared right back at her worried eyes.

"Damn it, Ree." She stopped for a moment and looked at Adrienne. She seemed apologetic, those same Jack puppy dog eyes. It made her smile. "Thanks… for killing me."

"What?" she asked, confused and expecting a lecture. "Did they forget the logic zone of your brain or something?"

"No I mean it. I know… I know your original plan was to kill me and leave me dead."

"No… I… I could never… Yeah, it was something like that."

"Why didn't you?"

Adrienne seemed to want to cry but she gulped it all back. "Well frankly darling you sort of saved yourself. I don't know what you did but that moment you showed me the yellow kitchen, something sort of clung onto the dream."

"I gave you humanity." she said, smiling. "And you gave me life."

"Well you were gonna die anyway. I just sped it up a little."

Sam squinted her eyes and scowled. She shut off the laptop and started to gather up the papers. "How did he die?" she asked quietly without looking up from her papers.

"You've wanted to ask that for a while, huh?" Adrienne said. She looked away too. "I'm sorry, Mom. I can't tell you that one."

"Why?"

"Because you told me never to remind you."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel and Janet had to talk. He took her back home the day of the flood. It was a quiet ride. It was a quiet goodbye, but Janet knew what it meant. She wouldn't be the ultimatum but here it was.

They stood at her front steps. It was midday. He took her hands in his and looked straight at her. Her face was blank. His was apologetic, and in a blink he just hugged her so hard that a tear left her of its own volition.

"Daniel, I…" she began but she gave up, smiled, and hugged him back.

"I wish I could have seen how the future played out the first time. I can't tell you if you'll be happier this way. I can't tell you how much it means to me to have you in my life. But Janet, don't leave us. Don't do it for me or because of me," he said from within her hair.

"We were something, weren't we?" she said. "I was never meant to be kidnapped, was I?"

Her tone was steady, almost eerily so. There was something different about her, something they had detached like bottling the very thing that made her Janet and selling it for profit. He didn't even want to imagine what they had done to her. She still refused to speak of it.

"Why do you ask?" he said, trying to prevent in her the pain of what might have been and what once was.

"Adrienne. She asked… my permission."

"For what?" he asked, disturbed and slightly shaken. Janet turned and opened the door.

"To love you," she said and went inside.

He stopped for a moment and smiled slightly with the same apologetic eyes. It was such a juvenile thing for Adrienne to do. But then, no matter how old or relatively young she looked, she had never had a childhood. She never dealt with crushes or the like. When she loved, no matter how much she feared it, it was with all her heart.

And he felt unworthy of it but if he had the chance, he'd give her the life she was robbed. It was a noble sentiment. Too bad he'd never get the chance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ree and Sam spent the night talking about the past and the future and the annoying habits they'd noticed off each other. Dionysus didn't come up at all. Sam sensed it was a delicate subject and she'd gotten enough answers for a decade. Apparently, she had memorized the scores of the next dozen or so Superbowls in case she got stuck here and Jack managed to survive.

"Enough entertainment in that little man to last a decade," she said.

When it was 9:00 in the morning, Adrienne announced it was time for the first part of the surprise and that they'd have to go to Cheyenne. Sam didn't like all the mystery but she figured it was worth it to keep Jack enthused.

She wondered if it was going to be like this from now on. Jack would plan stupid romantic gestures to get her to leave the office. He'd be the soccer mom, the chef. She'd be eating charred beef and beer for the rest of her life. The car ride to base, she couldn't help smiling as she thought about their future.

It was ok to dream now. There was a chance now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The mess hall was clean but abandoned. It hadn't been flooded and most personnel had been sent home so it remained a haven of what once was. Normal operation was something they wouldn't hear for a while. But here she was.

Sam stood at the entrance to the mess. Both doors had been opened as far as they could go. All the tables had been cleared out and the back line, usually busy with hungry, gossiping airmen, was now devoid of life.

It was eerily quiet. But as soon as Sam took a step forward, she heard Adrienne snap her fingers behind her. The doors slammed shut and the table in the middle of the room was now in a white tablecloth and housed a single red rose in a thin, long vase.

Sam turned around to see the doors close and when she turned back to face the table, Jack was standing there in a black tux with his hands behind his back. And as soon as he saw her smile, Glenn Miller music began to play in the background. He smiled back and raised a remote control from behind his back and tossed it behind him, landing somewhere near the blue Jell-O.

She started to calmly walk towards him "It's not quite magical but I figure it's better than…" he began but she was already mere centimeters from him.

"You didn't have to," she whispered, looking him over with seductive eyes, slowly tip-toeing up to kiss him.

"Yeah well I don't want you to figure out what an idiot you're marrying."

"Oh sir, I figured that out a _long_ time ago."

"'Sir?' Do you have any idea how much I love it when you say that?" he joked, planting a kiss on her neck.

She laughed but as his kisses got deeper, longer, she felt something rise in her. A heat. Her eyes turned the color of flame and she had to have him.

"Let's get out of here, now!" she insisted, already pushing him off her reluctantly and pulling him through the doors to the nearest VIP room.

"Sam, I don't think this…" but her kisses refused to let him speak. He knew something was wrong. Not that she would be so impulsive but that he would allow himself to do this twice now knowing that she wasn't in her right mind. That maybe this wasn't his Sam.

Or maybe… he wasn't her Jack.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-FOUR:**

--How will whatever's taken over Jack react to the news that not only has Adrienne known all along that it's in him but that she's taken advantage of the situation?

--How long before the end?

--Why don't we ever see the wedding?

--How will Jack take the news of the baby?

--How will Daniel ever be able to forget Adrienne after she's gone?

--What does it mean when a man raises a being he knows from birth to have the powers of a star?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_Stay tuned for the sequel, officially titled "Endless Night" coming July 2006. _

LEVEL 28 comes to MySpace! Unfortunately, I'm unable to post the site on FanFiction because it's not letting it through the darn HTML thingy. But my MySpace name is AriadneInLove as always. Do find me. Or leave a review and I'll drop the address. Thanks to all!-Grace.


	24. Giving In

**NOTE:**_ Notice their reactions when the shadow finally reveals itself. Even though something _has_ taken over him, Sam treats him as if this were another obstacle in their relationship something created by Jack to project his own fears. So while she's telling him there's no escape from their relationship, it's really trying to escape the base. Then who's really crazy here? Sam or Jack? Or both? _o.O

-------

**PART TWENTY-FOUR: **_Giving In_

-------

Morning.

The VIP rooms were too public. Cameras were everywhere. They ran like careless children to Jack's car and drove to her house. It was closest. Her room was dark the next morning, except for the dim light of a lamp by her bedside. Jack wasn't even sure if it _was_ morning. But his eyes felt like they'd been bombarded by light.

He stumbled out of the bed, trying not to wake Sam, and left the room, fumbling for the doorknob with the incentive to go home to the base. He wasn't even sure what drove him there. He just had business to take care of.

Before he even got to the elevators of Level 1, everything went to dark as if the sun had died and he was center stage to its passing.

After that, he lost all control of his body. He screamed for help, for someone to help him but he was walking through the hallways as he did every morning. No matter how much he screamed, nothing came out.

And that's when he knew. He'd been taken over by the shadow... by Anubis.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam had heard the noise of someone bumping into the bedside table but she hadn't thought much of it. She still thought herself calmly awaiting the light to bring her out of her dreams.

Dreams. They seemed dreams no longer. But just when she felt that surge of happiness come over her at the thought of waking up to Jack's sleepy smile, she found herself alone.

"Jack?" she said, yawning, but the door closed. She looked around and saw she was still at the SGC. She looked for her uniform and found parts of Jack's instead. It was too dark to bother looking for her own so she quickly threw it on. The arms were far too long but it made her smile a bit to wake up in his clothes.

And then she thought about it. _Oh dear lord, is he walking around half-naked?_ she thought and giggled to herself.

She looked outside and his car was gone. Immediately she thought the worst: Maybe he couldn't face her in the morning… maybe he didn't care for her as she thought… maybe he had more important things to do… maybe guilt was riding him too…

At the thought, her stomach growled violently, not of hunger but of worry. She felt the need to know where he was. A presence surrounded her heart, like a fist that squeezed at ever thought of Jack. Every uneasy thought.

She felt death capture her mind again and her world turned slightly darker. "Jack…" she whispered and closed her eyes. She reached for the table by the door and fumbled on some mindless trinket.

She reached for her forehead and the lightest touch of her hand made it feel like blocks of pressure had pressed upon her brain. Her heart refused to calm, sensing her worry. She wanted to throw up but she controlled herself. Her eyes burst open and something reached for her like her entire left side was being pulled away.

She saw her arm and her home being left behind in a long trail like a blur. And before she knew it, she was standing in front of Cheyenne Mountain in the still rising morning.

The sweat on her brow turned to ice, her breath to smoke that left her throat jagged and cut. She cursed slightly at the pain then began to walk lamely towards the tunnel entrance, hugging Jack's large, green uniform jacket closer to her, feeding off the residual warmth of his last embrace.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Daniel?" Adrienne called playfully. She knocked on his door, knowing all too well how early it was. She hardly slept. Why should _he_? Now that she could no longer see her dark future, time went by so slowly. She no longer had an agenda to worry her while, her endless beehive mind working for a solution to her liking.

"Daniel!" she called again more sternly. No one answered.

She scrunched up her forehead as she did when irritated, rested her back against the door and slid down. She sighed and looked around. The color of morning was slowly riding the clouds into her little piece of sky. She saw colors again. Not the ribbons of light or terrifying images of death and overlapping destinies. She saw life and blissful ignorance. It brought a smile to her face and she sighed again, taking in the chilly breeze.

Suddenly, before she could exhale, the door opened behind her in a huge, angry pull and she fell back onto the ground. When she looked up, Daniel was looking down at her with a cross eye, squinting madly with reproach.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" he asked through gritted teeth, looking down at the smile between his slippers.

"No, isn't that fabulous?" she said and extended a hand for him to help her up.

"Aren't _you_ disturbingly chipper," he said, bringing her in. "What's up? Is the world ending again?"

"Oh you joke. But who really knows? Somewhere out there, there's a world ending and we're just sitting here, doing nothing!"

"We're doing more than nothing, Ree. We're sleeping. And this little side of the world is perfectly safe, from evil snakes and glowing little people with a superiority complexes at least, so in the meantime, I think I'll go join the rest of the world in doing nothing," he said from across the island in the kitchen. "Seriously Ree, what are you doing here?"

She made a face like a spoiled little brat being sent to its room, dropped down on the overstuffed sofa, and crossed her arms. "I can't sleep. I still can't get used to everything. And the Gate's disconnected so I'm stuck here with nothing to do."

He'd started to make some coffee and looked back at her. "The Gate's disconnected?"

"Well the floor's been cleared off and the controls are gone. I could start it but I doubt it would make much of a difference. I've no one to go away with."

"Oh no, don't even think about it. I'm done with the whole running off to some underwater planet to rescue your future ex-husband just to kill him again or… ugh, my head hurts just thinking about it," he said and brought her some coffee then sat across from her. As soon as he leaned back and crossed his legs, he realized he was in his blue plaid boxers and said, "I'm gonna go put on pants. Keep talking."

"Oh no please. I like you better this way. Well, I was thinking of maybe looking for my own place outside the SGC."

"What? You think they're going to let you do that? They still consider you an alien 'cause you can through the Gate," he yelled from his room.

"I know. But I can't stay in that little room anymore. It brings back way too many god-awful memories."

He came back into the living room in jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. "What about one of your parents?"

"Daniel, I'm 43 years old. I can't go live with my parents."

He raised an eyebrow. "43? You're 43?"

"Yes, yes, yes… Well give or take a few years. Depends on from when you're counting. I count from when I was actually given birth to. Sam counts from when I returned from Ascension. We don't like to think of the time in-between."

"Hmm… right. Well you could always double up here with me."

Ree looked up from her coffee and stared at him for a moment before responding as if looking to see if he was kidding. "No way in hell, sweets. Thanks for the offer though."

He smiled and looked away. He was somewhat glad she responded like so. He really couldn't imagine waking up floating in a different place every time they--

"Something's wrong," she interrupted his thoughts. "Sam's calling me. She's at the base. Can you give me ride back?"

"Wait, did you _walk_ here?"

"It gave me something to do," she said dismissively, grabbing his keys from the counter and heading for the door.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam had made it to the elevators and collapsed to the floor as soon as the doors closed. When they reopened, she found herself searching for the strength to reach the doors once more.

As soon as she got to the control room, there he was: Jack, crouched down in a corner of the trashed room.

"Jack?" she asked quietly, seeing his shivering form. The shadow lingered over him.

"Don't come closer," he said in a rough, gritty voice. "We don't wish to hurt you."

"Oh my God, Jack, what did you do?"

"It took us over. We are empty," his follow voice echoed, ignoring her. His eyes were dark. Her Jack was gone. Somewhere in there, a dimming light had finally extinguished.

She sighed and sat down beside him on the floor by the pieces of shredded metal. Dionysus' palm prints still dug into the consoles. "Nothing took you over Jack."

"None of it is as it was."

She scoffed and began to cry silently. "Why? Why is there never an end to all this? Just when it seems we're done here, when _I'm_ done here, you bring us back."

He turned to face her with his dark, empty eyes. It wasn't Anubis, she knew. A shadow, yes, but Anubis was nothing to her. She kissed him and caressed his face then stood up and extended a hand for him to stand. He didn't take it, simply looked at her with Jack's usual confused face. She had once thought that was his _only_ face.

"Don't bother," she said. "There's no way out of here. You're stuck."

"I see," the voice said and looked away. "Will you help us?"

Sam's silent cry turned to a gentle sob. "Let's get you to the infirmary."

"No! Help us escape!"

"You have nowhere to go! You _can't_ go! We've been trying to escape for years. It hasn't helped."

"No!" It said and jumped up, the shadow behind him, standing face to face with her.

"Damn it, Jack," she whispered and put a hand to his head, delivering a bolt of energy that sent him flying back towards the consoles. "Don't make me do this."

"What are you?" it hissed in pain.

"Will you come with me now?"

Adrienne came running up the stairs in a blur. Daniel ran breathlessly behind him. "What's wrong?" she screamed and saw Jack. She froze and looked at Sam and her calm exterior.

"Oh damn," Daniel whispered from behind Ree.

"Mom, stand back."

"No Ree, he's fine."

"Look at his eyes, Mom! Look at him! That's not Jack!" Sam had the face of a woman too tired to move, to think, to escape her denial. She walked towards them and nearly collapsed into Daniel. "That's it. You can't handle this. Daniel, get her to the infirmary. I'll deal with him."

"You'll deal with me?" the voice asked curiously, slightly offended. Daniel took Sam away but she had pretty much buckled onto him and he was forced to carry her all the way to the infirmary, leaving Adrienne and Jack to themselves. "Aww, but we were having such a great time."

"Jack, she's right. You let it take over."

"We are not--"

"Stop it!" she yelled. "She doesn't deserve this!"

"Make us stop. Make us stop hurting her!"

She looked away and gestured for him to come to her. A hand upon his forehead and the shadow left him, floated above him as his body collapsed onto the floor. Before her, two spirits battled -- one white, one dark -- for supremacy over the body.

"Take me instead," she said wearily. "Leave him. Take _me_."

The shadow floated from one body to the other, trying to take over Ree but upon realizing her mind, tried to flee, clawing at thin air to escape. But she would not let it leave and it dwindled within her.

Daniel came up the stairs to the control room and upon seeing the dissipating shadow, went to Ree's aid. "What happened? Is Anubis gone?" he asked.

Ree scoffed. "That thing wasn't Anubis. It was a part of him, a spy, but not Anubis. It fed off him, imprinting itself through the sarcophagus," she said, her tone drowsy. "Damn, that means they'd already killed him a few times first."

"Is he ok now?"

"Please let him remember," she whispered to herself as they helped Jack's limp body up off the floor, his spirit already back in its home. "I'm just surprised he lasted this long. It's been months since the slave camp."

"You knew? Well, he had to save Sam, remember? Jack would never have given in if she didn't need him."

She sighed. "Daniel, I can't do this," she said as they entered the infirmary. "I want to be able to adapt but I can never… I won't do it. I've got to go back home."

"There's nothing back there, Ree!"

"Daniel, if you remembered anything from when you were Ascended, you wouldn't be saying that to me," she said, kissed him on the lips and ran off to plot who knows what involving who knows who. And somehow he felt, this would be one of the last times he'd see her.

If only he knew: she'd carry a part of him within her forever.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-FIVE:**

_Try to go back to previous chapters and answer the questions at the end of each chapter. Can you? Because we near the end, only a few things remain to be answered. _

--We still don't know: Who is she here to kill, besides Dionysus?

--Who will betray SG-1?

--Will the government get involved in this?

--What ever happened to the Jell-O? Wasn't someone supposed to get caught in it?

--What did Jack want to tell Sam that night he came to her house and found Daniel? Was this a critical change in the future?

--Is Pete completely gone? Yeah. I'll answer that one right here. YES!

--Is Adrienne still an Ancient? What is her true nature? Is she really a clone?

--Who was behind Janet's kidnapping? Is it the same people who make Sam create Adrienne?

-- Is Bra'tac really dead? Yeah. Sorry. I really loved him though.

--Will they ever return to the slave camp?

--What about Janet and Daniel?

--Did Adrienne ever really love Daniel?

--And finally… are Jack and Sam ever going to go on their fishing trip?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**DID YOU KNOW?** The final chapter of Level 28, coming in a few days, will be called Two Mothers. Speculate on _that_!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_Stay tuned for the sequel, officially titled __"Endless Night__."__ Unfortunately, it will be delayed for much later than I had originally anticipated. Otherwise, I'll put the story as a continuation of this one. So, even though there's one or two chapters left… Level 28 will not end for quite some time. _

**READ? REVIEW!**


	25. Inquisition

**NOTE:**_ This is the second to last chapter of Level 28. We finally discover a way into the Rogue NID agents. Jack and Sam face a small court martial. And Jack learns everything about Adrienne, even if we don't. The end is a shocker. _DON'T MISS OUT!

-------

**PART TWENTY-FIVE: **_Inquisition_

-------

There was calm in Cheyenne the days that followed. The control room had been cleaned up, Janet reinstated against her will, funerals finally over, and yet, Sam could not help feel a presence missing as she stood before the Gate.

"It's strange not having it, isn't it?" Daniel said, coming into the Gate room.

"No, that's not it at all. It's like something's still coming but it can't."

He raised an eyebrow, both hands carelessly set in his pockets. "More aftereffects of Ascension?" She nodded. "Sam, do you remember anything more of it?"

"A warning: Don't let the threats of tomorrow make you forget to live today. One of Orlin's, I'm afraid." she said lightly.

He wondered if she saw how Adrienne has showed him. He wondered if they'd ever know what Adrienne really was, what Sam now was but for how long.

"Come on. The NID got word of what'd been going on here and Kinsey wants a word in the briefing room," he said with disgust in his tone. Kinsey was not welcomed, still or ever.

She shook her head. "You go ahead. I'm waiting for someone."

He was worried about her but nodded along and left her to her thoughts. She looked to the Stargate as if it spoke to her, as if it was telling her something she didn't want to believe. But still she smiled and he left her to it. She'd come along eventually.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack left the infirmary the man he had been what seemed like years ago, but he had a single image locked in his head. Even though he remembered everything and felt deeply for the lives he'd struck down in his path, all he could think of were possibilities. New opportunities had presented themselves. His job meant nothing to him anymore, after all the times he'd faced death and possession and reanimation in the last couple of months. He'd seen a lot but sometimes the truth just smacks someone in the face with a piece of wood and keeps walking.

"Dad!" he heard someone call from behind. It was such a strange thing to hear. Adrienne had spent the last 3 days telling her… everything. At least, he thought it was everything. He knew there were things she kept from him but he trusted her judgment in keeping those things from him. After all, she'd just spent half a year trying to make herself obsolete.

"Hey, Ree, what's happening?" he said casually, walking through the halls as if nothing could bring him down. He was on his way to share some news.

"Well I think the monkey population's a little out of control but nothing much."

He laughed and responded, "You know, that's be so much easier to laugh over if I knew for sure you were kidding."

She smiled and they walked side by side. "It's time, Dad. He's here."

"Heh. Is everything in place?"

"Yeah. Janet's awaiting the sample as it is. The clone already has your DNA. It's just awaiting the rest."

"And Sam?"

"I didn't tell her. Have you talked to her since… that day?"

"Not about this. Plans mostly."

"I'm sorry I might have to miss the wedding. You in a tuxedo would have been quite a sight."

"Better late than never. We've waited long enough, I think."

"Ah my dear old man. You've no idea just how long," she said, falling behind his step. When he turned around, she was already gone.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey," Jack said coming into the meeting room then stopped. "What's going on?" he asked, looking around. Daniel and Teal'c sat on one side of the long table, both looking incredibly uneasy. On the other side sat three very menacing-looking officers and Senator Kinsey who wore an extremely smug face.

Sam came up behind him and stopped just as he did. "General? What's going on?"

"It's a meeting, Carter," Jack said, still slightly shocked.

"Yes, I see that. Thank you," she said slightly sarcastically.

Hammond gestured for them to sit down. They sat side by side at the nearest end of the table. Two chairs had been separated from the table and placed at the end. It looked and felt far too much like an inquisition.

Kinsey cleared his throat and began. "Welcome Major. Colonel. We are gathered here in light of a recent amount of proof concerning an illicit relationship between you two. General Hammond believes we should hold this in your presence on SGC grounds with the accompaniment of your team members."

Jack got lost in Kinsey's smug demeanor but Sam did not like this at all. "What do you mean illicit relationship?" she asked.

"Relationship?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow. "Are you kidding me? You mean it takes a room full of officers to tell us how _we_ feel? Man, I knew the Air Force was strict but this is ridiculous."

"Jack, I think they're trying to fire you," Daniel finally spoke through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, Daniel, I got that. I just want to know what the hell they think they're doing coming after both of us. There's enough in my file to put me in federal jail."

"What proof? Collected by whom?" Sam asked.

Kinsey got smug again. "This team of NID officials was gathered to--"

"NID? Pardon me if I don't trust them," Sam spoke. Jack decided to shut up now. He thought it was best for both of them. It was no longer his own record in jeopardy and he knew Sam was probably freaking out over this.

"No matter, Major. I promised them I'd listen to their _proof_ before taking any action," Hammond said.

"Then talk," Teal'c said out of the blue. For a moment, everyone stopped and looked at him.

The officials opened their folders and spread a few papers out on the table. _Oh shit,_ Sam thought. Jack's mind was in outer space. It was not making her any less perturbed. He was annoyed, she could tell.

A very strange officer with a long, crooked nose pressed the record button on a video camera aimed at both of them. Jack sighed and sat back in the seat. Sam refused to calm down and her tone was getting aggressive.

"Let's begin," the long-nosed man said, "with the first act of indiscretion recorded nearly 8 years ago on the 15th of August 1997 after an encounter with the people of P3X-797. Is it not true that you, Major Carter, at the time Captain, sexually attacked your commanding officer, Colonel O'Neill, in the men's locker room?"

"I was affected by the alien virus!" she defended.

Jack leaned forward and said, "And might I add, nothing happened."

"Very well, then how do you explain the various emotionally outbursts from both of you reported by fellow officers concerning your relationships. Let's see the list: once reported by Dr. Frasier after Colonel O'Neill's disappearance on the planet Edora for 2 months, once by Dr. Lee after Colonel O'Neill's disappearance with Colonel Maybourne, by various members of the rescue operation after Major Carter's disappearance on the Prometheus and on the Alpha site a few months ago. Apparently several objects were harmed in Colonel O'Neill's warpath on that one... shall I go on?"

"All of that is bogus," Sam said. "You can't prove that it was in any way sexually explicit in any of those occasions. There's no punishment under that."

"True, Major Carter. There is no evidence of sexual misconduct and thus we cannot prosecute under NQ-135. But according to I-89, if a relationship, sexually involved or not, reaches a point where it interferes with regular base operations, it may be cause for mutual termination."

"This is an act, isn't it?" Jack said. "You're just trying to divert attention from the real fact."

"No Colonel. I'm trying to put an end to your shenanigans before anyone gets hurt," Kinsey jumped in rudely.

"Shenanigans? Well someone decided to use his random word dictionary today. Good for you, Bob," Jack joked menacingly.

It was not helping Sam's mental state. "Sir, I think it'd be best not to antagonize the nice agents with a pink slip half filled in their pockets," Sam whispered through gritted teeth.

Jack smiled. He wasn't letting them get to him. "No, Carter," he said then looked to Kinsey. "You brought all this on us _now _because of Adrienne, right? You think she's enough proof of a 'previously-existing relationship.' You want to take both us down because you know Adrienne can kill you with a snap of a finger. Because she can stop you before you kill us all. Because you know she knows what you are, Kinsey, and don't think ruining anyone's career is going to stop that. You're still going down, _Bob_. If I don't do it, she damn well will."

"Is that a threat, Colonel?"

"Damn right," Jack yelled, standing up and slamming his fist on the table. Daniel caught his glass of water before it tumbled over. Jack called for Adrienne to show herself and like a figure walking through the clouds, Adrienne appeared as if reintegrated front to back right before them, walking towards Kinsey.

"Hello, Senator," she said with menacing red eyes. Daniel loved it when she did that. It made the creepy politicians squeal. "Aren't you glad to see me again? Killed anyone lately, darling?"

"Colonel, get her away from me!"

Jack laughed. Sam smirked to herself. "Oh you're on your own now, Kinsey. I've got no control over her."

"Major Carter! Don't let her do this!" he yelled as Adrienne picked him up by the neck effortlessly from his chair.

"I'm sorry, Senator. Did you say something? I think there's something in your throat," she responded, standing up beside Jack.

"You'll regret this!"

"Oh we already do. But see if we let you leave this office right now, Senator, we'd be responsible for the killing of several millions," Daniel said, getting up as well, his tone just as calm. Only the officers that had come with Kinsey seemed to be in any way shocked and scared.

"Adrienne, would you please escort the senator to his prison cell?" Hammond asked, lying back on his chair.

"They'll know I'm missing! You'll never get away with it!"

"Oh you see, that's where you're wrong," Adrienne said with an evil smile, and with a flick of her hand, she slashed the senator's arm open and gathered his blood in a little, floating, red ball. She commanded it go to Dr. Frasier and it floated on its way down to the infirmary. "That little ball is going to ensure there's a Senator Kinsey sitting in your office tomorrow morning, the same way I'm the promise there'll always be a Jack O'Neill in this base. Oh, don't worry. I would never force you to meet your clone. It might kill the poor thing to know what it came from."

Teal'c smiled. Jack noticed it and did a small gesture of surprise with his eyebrows. Sam smiled at the gesture.

"Now Senator, if you'll accompany me, there's a nice little prison cell on a planet not to far from... the sun. You should like it there. It's full of human waste. You'll feel right at home," Adrienne said, and pushed him through the hallways to the control room.

The airmen escorted the bewildered NID agents to a nice cell until Frasier could erase their memories with the same Dargol chemical they'd used on Linea all those years back.

"Well done, SG-1. I'll leave you to enjoy your time off," Hammond said and walked off to his office, but not before turning around and finishing, "And Colonel, the papers made it through. It's official."

Jack smiled and thanked him. "What papers?" Sam asked, suspicious.

"My resignation," Jack answered. They all stared at him.

"You mean after all this you're still leaving? WHY?" Daniel yelled.

Jack put on a devious smirk and turned to Sam who was still standing beside him with the same bewildered face. "So I could do this," he said and pushed her hair back from her eyes before giving her a kiss that left her smiling for 3 days. Jack and Teal'c just stood with wide-open eyes for a few minutes before backing out of the room as quickly as possible.

On their way out, Adrienne was about to come in and caught a glimpse of the saliva fest before Daniel pushed her out into the hall. Teal'c had already disappeared and it was just Daniel and a laughing Ree in the hallway outside the meeting room. "Did you see that?" she said still laughing. "I can't believe I'm gonna be conceived in the meeting room. Oh God, we're going to have to sterilize the entire room!"

Daniel laughed and said, "We might have to sterilize Jack."

She smiled and bit her bottom lip before she realized she was staring into his eyes. The smile faded and she excused herself, "I should probably check on that blood sample for the clone."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART TWENTY-SIX:**

--What's going to happen to Adrienne now?

--Is her job done?

--How has the future changed?

--How is Jack going to take the news of the baby?

--Will Daniel ever meet his child?

--And… catch a sneak-peek into the sequel, as well as read some deleted scenes never before read. Notice how the plot would have changed if these scenes had been kept.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**SPOILERS and TIDBITS**: The date the long-nosed man mentions as when Sam attacks Jack sexually while under the "alien virus" is the actual date "The Broca Divide" aired in the US. The regulations Kinsey mentions are actual regulations from the air force found at and there is also mentions of "100 Days," "Paradise Lost," "Grace," and "Death Knell"… some of my favorite shipper episodes. "Yeah, sure, you bet'cha…" comes from "Small Victories." It's sad that I know each episode by memory.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

_ The sequel is just a few days away. Add me to your author alert list to get an e-mail notice of its release. Thank you so much for reading this far. _

**READ? REVIEW!**


	26. Two Mothers

-------

**PART TWENTY-SIX: **_Two Mothers_

-------

A few days passed and the Kinsey clone was already in plan. His mission: get the hell out of the NID's way. It was a shell, no emotions. It could be terminated at any time without any second thought. Any action it took was based on the emotions and ways of living set forth by Jack's DNA. There was nobody so incorruptible, Adrienne thought when she made him.

But Daniel caught her arm in the hallways and pulled her closer to him, "You ok with all this?" he asked.

"With what?"

"Seeing a new version of you being born."

"Oh Danny, that'll never be me. I'll just think of it as having a little... sibling. Besides, I won't be sticking around remember?"

"Where will you go?" he asked as they started walking side by side down the hallway. To where, neither was sure. "Will you disappear if you were never born?"

"No. I'm separated from my timeline. I can't just disappear. And don't worry. Nobody else will come through the Gate. I made sure the technology can't be reproduced after this."

"Then what? What do you plan on doing?"

"Hmm. Check out some cabins. See a man about some fish... You know. Yeah, sure, you bet'cha kind of stuff."

Daniel smiled and stopped them both before going down the stairs. "Ree, really." Her smile went away and her eyes got a little teary but she disregarded it as she did all her emotions. He didn't. "Stay here, Ree. You can help so much. Everything's different, right? What harm could it do if you joined the team? With Jack retiring, we're going to need a leader."

"Mom's got that covered, thanks. Besides, the Gate's activating. We might want to get down there," she said the last part with a smirk. Danny didn't like it at all. It meant something bad was going to happen.

When they got to the control room, Teal'c was already there. Jack and Sam ran down the stairs a little after the 5th chevron started glowing. The alarms started ringing but before Walter could announce the unauthorized activation, Adrienne put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. "Don't call it. No need."

Then she made her way calmly down to the Gate room leaving Daniel, Teal'c, Jack, and Sam to look at each other quizzingly. They followed when they saw her waiting patiently at the ramp with her hands in her pockets. They all waited behind her.

It was two minutes of waiting before anyone came through. It seemed like an eternity to SG-1.

And then she came through: an angel in white clothing.

The others didn't recognize her right away, all except Jack who smiled, until she lifted her white hood and revealed a blonde head and blue eyes that shot through the base like a rainbow inside a jail cell. It was a most welcome visitor.

No one dared move. Daniel, Teal'c, and Sam all stood frozen with jaws dropped. Jack stepped forward with a smile and stood beside Adrienne. They had the same look, the visitor noticed.

And then Adrienne whispered, "Mother..."

The visitor smiled. "Hello Ree. We've missed you," she said. Adrienne smiled brightly and ran up the ramp to hug her tightly.

"Hello, Sam," Jack said, walking up calmly to greet her.

"Hello, Jack," Mother said gleefully after Ree let go. He hugged her like he would long lost family.

Sam noticed the smile on her future self's slightly wrinkled face when she saw Jack, the face of someone who had seen too much too soon and had suffered far too much to care of time's damaging effects. She did not like it. It seemed like she'd missed him more than she should.

Daniel waved a quick hello and Teal'c bowed his head in respect. Future Sam waved at Walter and Janet up on the control room. Hammond hadn't come down yet.

"We need you back, Ree. You can't stay here. Your work is done."

"Is it safe?" Ree asked.

"Well the monkey population is getting a bit out of control but otherwise, you did it," Mother joked. Jack gave a concealed chuckle. Nobody else got it but they didn't seem to care.

Adrienne walked down to Daniel and kissed him lightly on the lips, knowing Janet was watching, and said, "Don't forget me, 'kay?"

"What's going to happen without you here to tell us what to do?" She shot him a look of bewilderment. "When the world finds out it's a pawn in a game of chess with only black pieces?"

She smiled and looked down. "Can't you see? The future's draped in white, Daniel. Better a world swollen by light than one where I would need to be born," she responded, grabbed his hand as a sign she'd miss him, and kissed him on the forehead.

She moved on to hug Teal'c beside him. "Arik tree-ac te kek, Teal'c. We do not surrender, even in death."

"You will be missed, Ree," the Jaffa responded.

And then came Sam, who, while still smiling at Ree, kept her eyes on her future self and Jack. They were talking about something. Jack was not smiling. He'd looked back to them and asked her future self, "Will there be things as beautiful as she where she's going?"

Her future self had responded with a kind but tired smile, "There should be only beautiful things. But you and I both know that can never be. I can guarantee you one thing though: she will be loved."

Sam did not hear the rest as she noticed Ree was awaiting a hug. Her face was solemn again. Her daughter, her friend, was leaving her all alone to assure a future that never seemed to have existed.

"Take care of yourself, kiddo," Sam said, her face buried in her daughter's hair as they hugged. "Don't let me forget why I came back. Don't you forget it either. There's just too much that time cannot erase..."

Sam had Jack to live for now, no matter the doubts. Without a future and without a past, all Adrienne had left were shattered pieces of an imperfect present and she still refused to do anything about it.

But then just as Adrienne was about to part from her mother's arms, her eyes opened wide in slight fear and astonishment. She looked at Sam with those same eyes and slowly turned her head to face the Gate -- to face Jack.

They thought of what it could mean and worry automatically reached their faces, turning them pale with the fear of uncertainty. Daniel noticed the looks they all gave each other and soon they realized the 38 minutes was almost over.

Adrienne sighed and walked up to Jack, gave him a hug, and said in somewhat of a whisper, "I'm sorry I couldn't bring you a cigar to celebrate."

Jack raised an eyebrow, his hands back in his pockets. "What are you talking about?"

"I'd tell you but I don't even think _she _knows... Make her happy ok? She had to go through a lot alone. Company is the greatest gift, through the good and bad..."

And then Jack got it, the eyes and the astonishment and the strange cryptic messages. He stood frozen and tilted lightly to the side so he could face Sam with a slightly open mouth. She gestured a "What?" but he only looked down at her stomach, walking towards her slowly and wrapping his hands around it, lifting her up off the ground in excitement.

The other Sam ignored everything. She'd seen this movie once before. Instead, she looked caringly towards Adrienne and extended a hand for her to take. They walked towards the Gate and Adrienne stepped through. Sam stopped just before the horizon and looked back at the roots of her grand family and shed a tear that fell to the ramp just as she took a step into the unknown.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**EPILOGUE: **_A look into the sequel, "Endless Night"_

**One month later -- early November 2004**

Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel had returned through the Gate from their latest visit to P4C-570 to see how Aileia was settling in. Teal'c would be leaving them soon to take care of her and Zagreus and then it'd be Daniel and Sam and then in 8 months it'd just be Daniel, and SG-1 would just fade away. Dangers still loomed but it seemed their legacy would be better completed behind a desk. At some point, they realized family came first.

But when they stepped through that Gate onto the planet, there had been four. As soon as they came back, Sam collapsed onto her knees on the cold metal ramp.

She looked up at the control room, at General Hammond's distraught face.

"He's dead," she whispered. "Jack's dead…"

------

**April 2052**

Adrienne stepped through the Gate, her breath leaving her for worthier hosts. She knew she had left the sanctity of the event horizon behind her. A small warning voice in her head told her: just jump back into the horizon. End it once and for all.

But she couldn't, not without seeing the future she had created. She shivered at the thought of new ground, at the knowledge that she could do nothing anymore. That this was where she was meant to stay, even if it held no place for her. So she opened her eyes…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**THE END**

_ The sequel is just a few days away. Add me to your author alert list to get an e-mail notice of its release. Thank you so much for reading this far. _

**READ? REVIEW!**

**Endless Night **_sequel to Level 28 (coming July 2006)_

_------------_

**SUMMARY**: _Adrienne has returned to the future and things are slowly getting back to normal. Sam and Jack have come to terms with their relationship but a few days before Jack finally retires, he dies horrifically while on a recon mission. Sam is left pregnant and slowly spiraling into depression. She makes a few bad choices and ends up nearly losing the one good thing she's got left in this world: her unborn child. The story then shifts between Daniel's attempts to save himself and Sam's memories of Jack and Adrienne and what was once the greatest team assembled under Cheyenne Mountain, only to realize some may not be mere memories. _

_And Jack himself returns to set her free... _

_Meanwhile, Adrienne has returned to the future only to find that not only is there no place for her there but that she was not meant to live there anymore. She had been successful: she was never made. Seeing that she has no place in any timeline, she goes against the SGC's time travel regulations and sneaks back to 2005 where she can still serve a purpose. But not before learning some disturbing facts of what SG-1 had to go through before she was finally free of her past. So she condemns this vision of Utopia and joins Teal'c on the rescue for SG-1._

_-_

**SNEAK-PEEKS!**

---The name is officially "Endless Night" after one of the chapters in the original.  
---Yes, Jack dies during the first chapters. But he'll be back for the end.  
---No, it's not Sam-centric. My stories focus on multiple points of view.  
---The same story format is going to be followed, except that most is written in flashbacks.  
---Why not just keep adding to Level 28? Because the thing is freakin' 20-something chapters long, and that's enough!  
---It'll be posted on first and foremost, as always under "AriadneInLove."  
---Does Adrienne return? You bet your ass. All characters still alive (and some that aren't) after Level 28 will be back, including Aileia.  
---Will Dionysus? Nope. He's gone for good after PART TWENTY-ONE.  
---Will Sam give birth before the end? Not sure. We'll see. I can promise Jack will be there for it.  
---Who's going to be the new villain? Was there even one in the first one? Character interaction usually makes those lines blurred. But yes. There will be a defined villain who tortures Sam when she tries to save Jack. His/Her background is still undecided but so far, it'll probably be named Taliesin.   
---Will this be the end? Who knows? You do. The more fandom I develop, the more enthusiastic I'll be about taking on a third. This will be the last Adrienne novel, though. Frankly, she probably won't be surviving this one.


	27. Deleted Scenes

**Goodbye Scene -- set between chapter 20 and 21:** _Sam has awoken from her temporary possession by Ba'al. Jack cannot handle her harsh words or the torture at her hand during her possession so he decides to alienate himself from her pending his retirement, and in this scene, he announces this and his intention to end all relations with her. He later becomes victim to Anubis' spirit creature at his distraught feelings and tries to escape. The Gate had not been shut down as Dionysus hadn't died yet._

---------

Jack could not help feeling the need to be there with her, as he had always felt and been before. But now he could not look upon her face without seeing the gold in eyes that had called to him and tried so desperately to kill him.

Even though he knew it had not been her, nor could ever truly be the Sam he fell in love with, he could never kiss her without tasting his own blood again… could stand before her the man he had once been.

So now he stood at the end of her bed at the infirmary, his hands in his pocket, looking over her angelic face and silky hair atop the white sheets and pillows.

"Hey," she said too high to be a whisper, too low to be anything less than a comforting hello.

He had imagined, once, waking up beside her in bed, those very words in that very tone greeting him in the light of mid-afternoon sun. Now it only beckoned descent.

"Hey," he answered back unfeelingly. She extended a heavy but delicate hand for him to come closer. He imagined her using the very hand to choke him but snapped out of it and cautiously walked to her bedside, taking her hand just the same. "How are you feeling?"

"Hmm. I dunno," she said with a sigh, looking at him with a careless smile. She looked around and asked, "Where am I? What happened?"

"I'm sure you remember." She paused and thought about it but nothing really came to mind. No final memory. It was a blank slate, a new start like a new morning. "Ba'al took you over. The base took a hit."

She looked at his small facial scars, like fingernails, and looked down at her hands. She had done it. He took a deep gasp like she couldn't breathe as her hand began to shake slowly. He gripped it harder. "How many dead?" she said, her fear rising. "How many?" she yelled.

"14 down, 32 injured."

That's when he decided to tell her why he had come after so long away, why he had to leave her now at her most vulnerable.

"Sam, I need you to listen, ok? None of this was your fault. You have to know that. No one blames you… But I blame _myself_. I knew it was Ba'al when I brought him to you. I knew he could escape but I did it anyway. This is why the regulations exist, Sam. I let my feelings for you take over my reason and I'm so sorry."

"Jack, what are you talking about? You didn't mean it!"

"It's still my fault. And I can't handle being here anymore, being like this," he said and paused, taking in a big breathe and looking away from her deepening blue eyes. They still held a single hand, the last thread holding them together. "I turned in my resignation on the way here. This is goodbye, Sam. I'm leaving the SGC."

"Are you leaving the SGC, or are you leaving _me_?" she asked, a tear wanting to leave her but hid it with a withering cold tone.

"I wish I knew," he said. "But it's what I have to do… I'm sorry if I ever made you think we could--"

"Forget it. This is goodbye, right? There's no regret in a goodbye. There's no turning back. It's just the end." He knew she was too strong to admit to feeling anything at this point. So he closed his eyes for a moment, stood up, and let go of her hand reluctantly.

He didn't turn around on his way out, merely stopped as she said, "If it means anything at this point, I'd never take it back. Not a single year, Jack."

And he kept on walking right out of her life.

She looked around groggily at the endless rows of injured soldier around her own bed, her eyes turning teary. A nurse looked at her strangely, even piteously, she thought.

She looked to entrance of the infirmary. Maybe he'd come back. Maybe he'd decided she was more important than his stupid guilt. But he hadn't. Daniel had come in instead with a face like the nurse's. Pity, how she loathed it.

"Sam, what happened? Why did Jack leave like that?" he asked, sitting beside her.

"Nothing, Daniel. You wouldn't know."

"You mean about you and him? Please, Sam, I've know for over 8 years."

"He's retiring, Daniel."

"That's good, isn't it? Now you guys can--"

"He never wants to see me again, I assume. He blames himself for what happened with Ba'al. He knew the symbiote could take over and he didn't tell anyone because he let his personal feelings cloud his judgement," she said, the tears coming down by themselves. She hadn't even noticed, hadn't even felt them until she saw one fall upon her quivering hands.

Daniel noticed her staring down at her hands atop her stomach on the white hospital linens and put his own atop hers. "Sam, you're going to be fine. I'll go talk to him."

"No! No, please, don't. Don't tell him I've been crying. Please, Daniel. Jack can't know."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack had left the infirmary with his own heart in his hand, and he felt his hand tighten about it like a cage of pale fingers. He looked up and saw the hallways of Level 28 turn to lava, coming down around him. Heat reached his feet and made its way up his body mercilessly.

He stumbled to the elevator, trying desperately not to collapse. Walter was about to get in too but he closed the doors before anyone else could enter, and then slid down the far corner. He hid his face in his knees and rocked himself to make the voices stop but they just got louder and louder.

"Get to the Gate, Jack," they said in his own voice, overlapping onto themselves in echoing tones. His hand began to shake uncontrollably and a black smoke came out of his every pore.

Something was trying to leave him.

And then the elevator gave a small ding and the doors began to open. The hallway was clear on Level 28 that moment. He didn't know what would have happened if it hadn't been. But he got up off that floor nonetheless and with the smoke still encasing his every movement, he made it to the control room.

The technicians and engineers ran away from him as quickly as they could. He tumbled to the seat and…

**Deleted Death Camp Scene -- set around chapter 10:** _Teal'c is still at Anubis' death camp and_ _a little boy sends word of Jack's survival. Was deleted when I realized that Teal'c would have to respond and couldn't think of anything. _

---------

Later in the night, he heard the sound of footsteps on stubborn ground and sat up ready to defend himself if he must. But there was only a child.

He couldn't have been more than 9 years old and already he looked like he had survived ages of this torture. "Are you Teal'c, warrior of the Tau'ri?" he asked meekly, fidgeting a note in his hands.

"I am," Teal'c responded.

"I bring a message for you, sir, from the castle," he said and dropped him the note written on yellowing paper atop his lap before running out the tent scared. It reminded Teal'c of Rya'c when he was very small but his son had never been so timid.

He opened up the note, expecting something from Bra'tac of their plan. But no.

_I'm still here, T,_ it read.

He let it fall to the ground. He quickly jumped up off the ground and ran out after the boy but there was no need. He was waiting a response just outside the tent. Teal'c pulled the boy inside the tent again and knelt down before him in a great hurry, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Who gave this to you?" he asked firmly. "Who gave this to you!"

"A man in the castle with hair of gray. He said he was of the Tau'ri and he had to find you. He said he could free us."

"Can you find him again?"

"Surely, sir. He's in the Master's court."

"Explain."

"He's one of the Master's pets, sir. A favored host, brought back from the dead in the sarcophagus."

Teal'c took it in. It had to be O'Neill. Hope flickered again. "You tell him we're coming for him, understand. Tell him...

There was also an alternate proposal scene in the commissary, over Jell-O, but it got erased and my plans to put it in after they had already proposed made no sense. So I kept it how it was.

**STAY TUNED FOR A QUICK EXCERPT FROM** _ENDLESS NIGHT_


	28. Thank You All

**IMPORTANT: Hey readers. I know I said I'd finish Level 28 and make a sequel but it's becoming tedious. So, I plan on continuing the story as a second PART to Level 28 but not a sequel. Endless Night will be erased from FanFiction and officially begun as Chapter 29. **

**Thank you all. --Grace.**

**-**

_I would like to thank the following frequent reviewers, one by one:_

dark3princess -- Love ya Anna for reading through this thing chapter by chapter.

Danielle -- who loves the format

greenjadedragon -- who figured out the plot from the excerpt. Kudos!

roseofthegate -- thank you Jenn for sharing me with the community

scottiedog -- for loving more than just the shipper moments

trtlsoup2001 -- for admitting to crying and for always thinking two chapters ahead

McGyversGirl -- for writing dude three times. Priceless.

SG1-Fanfic -- for being so eloquent

Merry0742000 -- for swallowing all 28 chapters in one shot - nice one!

_and_ x-izzles-x -- for becoming part of the Level 28 MySpace community

-

_And I'd also like to thank all who added me to their story alert list. _

Anaika Skywalker

Bleh-X

CeltAngel

Chezza

dark3princess

ElDani

greenjadedragon

Grub5000 SJ Fan

helen8uk

jestlilome

JoSG1fan

Katrell RavenHawk

katy1986

Kit37

linkinparkgundam

MacGyversGirl

Matt1969

meowx2

NadineCarter

Nibikko

novastar22

picco

roseofthegate

sea2209

selache51

Spamurai

stargazzr8-28

StupidMajor

stusue

trtlsoup2001

x-izzles-x


	29. Lingering Prophecies

**FOR MY FAITHFUL FOLLOWERS, WHO'VE READ THIS FAR: **

I'd like to thank you but most of all, I'd like to keep you. So, for those that have been anticipating the sequel and all its mischief, I give you this small preview into the first chapter of "Endless Night." No Adrienne in this part, as of yet. The second chapter will be entirely what she sees in the future and what forces her to escape, becoming a renagade through time and prey to her own self-fulfilling prophecy. Find out what happens when she tries to go back to Daniel and ends up thousands of years earlier... and what happens to her child after its born in an era without disposable diapers.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In case any of you noticed, there's a small discrepancy in Level 28. During the first chapters, Adrienne admits to having grown up with Daniel already _dead_. However, in "The Mistress," she admits to having an affair with him and him leading a full life with Janet. This is NOT an error. You'll see why she says it in "Endless Night." You have to keep the time-travelling aspect in focus and I hope the non-sensical plot of Level 28 becomes a bit more refined in the sequel. I sure do. --Grace.

-

**Previously on Stargate SG-1**… Sometime around the 7th season, Jack and Sam's genetically engineered daughter (or rather Jack's semi-clone) from the future, Adrienne, comes through the Stargate in search of asylum with the incentive to change the future for the better.

However, when her plans turn into a mind-boggling web of deceit, death follows her every step, and not even SG-1 itself learns her true goals. Dr. Frasier is kidnapped, for what purpose is still unknown. Major Carter has died at Colonel O'Neill's hand, only to return from Ascension with new abilities. Daniel and Adrienne have resumed an affair they had begun 20 years in the future, leaving Adrienne unknowingly pregnant.

The Goa'uld threat continues to hound the SGC and a once-Ascended Dionysus (former husband and mate to the Goa'uld formerly within Adrienne) wrecks havoc in Level 28 which results in a flood and causes the Iris to fly off piece by piece, hitting him straight in the chest and killing him right in front of Adrienne, Daniel, Janet, and Aileia (a pregnant woman, revealed to be the high priestess in a secret society meant to bear the reincarnation of Dionysus), who becomes romantically involved with Teal'c after she had to kill her own husband.

The Gate is put out of commission and Sam and Jack are put on court martial for their "illicit relationship." Senator Kinsey is replaced with a hollow clone (thanks to Jack and Adrienne's not-so-clever plan), imprinted with parts of Jack's mind to keep everyone in check.

Colonel O'Neill retires… again. And he and Sam enjoy the romance they'd begun that night in her lab, which led to Sam's "enhanced" pregnancy. Sam's future self comes back through the Stargate and reclaims the daughter she lost, returning her to a supposedly better future.

-

**AND NOW…**

Sam and Jack's genetically engineered daughter has returned to the future but her attempts to influence fate have failed. A wedding is replaced by a funeral and Sam is left mourning, pregnant, and defenseless to a new evil on the rise.**  
**

"**Endless Night"**

---- By AriadneInLove ----

Adrienne had entered their lives so swiftly, shrouded in mystery and an air of inhumanity, that when she left, Daniel came to wonder if she was ever truly there.

In the months after her departure, he couldn't stand before the Gate without thinking of her. Every morning when Sam greeted him, he thought that smile could not exist without her. It hadn't been the same before her, and even though he knew Sam smiled because of Jack, he figured Adrienne had brought them together. She was the source of their happiness, and of his own sorrow.

And when he walked by the still slightly flooded corridors of the SGC, he couldn't help but remember all the trouble she brought them, all the games she played… but still he smiled. It wasn't so much he missed having her all to himself. He missed her presence like he missed an old friend and the times they'd had.

Jack and Sam seemed to be getting on well enough. They figured she still lived within Sam. After all, in a few months, they'd have something better than Adrienne. They'd have an original, natural version of the daughter they'd loved. But he knew they'd never see the baby as that. It wasn't Adrienne either, and it was no substitute. She would be a product of them and their love, and not the mad ramblings of politics gone horribly awry.

Jack would soon enjoy his retirement, if only the SGC would be free of him once and for all. They refused to let him, or at least his knowledge, go to waste. They had promised he'd no longer be needed after a week. But a week turned into a month… and a month turned into two. Christmas passed and while Jack and Sam continued their relationship without reservation, it was getting harder to imagine a life free of this worry, this responsibility… the inevitable chance that the moment either of them steps through the Gate, it'd be their last.

And then reality found them.

**-**

**Cheyenne Mountain Complex, January 2005**

"How long are you two going to keep this up?" Daniel exclaimed as he made a sliding stop at the sight of Sam and Jack "necking," as Teal'c had affectionately called it, on Sam's lab.

Sam turned a bit red but Jack just buried his shame in her shoulder and said in muffled groans, "We've 8 years of unexpressed sexual tension to catch up on, Daniel. Just be glad we're not in _your_ office."

He made a dismissing gesture and said, "Please don't say 'sexual' again. I already have to wash my eyes out with acid. Doing my ears might seep into my brain and then you're all screwed."

Sam laughed and moved away from under Jack to read the papers he was delivering. Before he could hand them to her, he shot her a look of warning. She didn't understand and quickly opened up the folder. As soon as she skimmed down to the results, the papers fell from her hand onto the table. Her denial pained her to hold them.

"It's a boy?"

Daniel nodded.

Jack slid the papers towards him and began to search for a mistake, any mistake. "How could it be a boy? Adrienne was…"

"Oh yeah, definitely a girl," Daniel chipped in, remembering moments atop lakes. Jack squinted hatred in his direction and Sam just went back to the papers.

"So what does this mean?" Jack asked.

"It's possible. After all, this baby was conceived naturally. It's not a clone, it's not… It's not Adrienne."

"Oh damn. Now we're gonna have to thing up a name," Jack moaned.

"But it's not like we were going to call it Adrienne anyway, Jack. We knew it wasn't going to be her."

Daniel rolled his eyes and left them to their petty squabble, not that they noticed he had left.

"How about naming it John?" Jack suggested.

"You want to name it after you?"

"Good point. What about Malcolm?"

"Where'd you get that one?"

"He was an old buddy of mine in the Gulf."

"Oh God, how'd he die?"

"Land mine. No wait… he was dishonorably discharged for getting caught bribing an officer... or was it prostitution? You know what? We have plenty of time to think of something."

She sighed and hid her face in her hands. He could tell something was wrong. He feared she had doubts, feared losing her. But he hid it under sarcasm and a gun.

"Sam, we'll be fine. So what if it's not a girl. I think that's better. Definitely less confusing."

"No, it's my dad. We have to tell him."

"He's gonna castrate me, isn't he?" Jack groaned.

Sam laughed and kissed him quickly on the lips and headed for the door. "Probably, and he just walked through the Gate."

Jack ran after her. Her new abilities were scaring him a bit. He had asked her if she had some sort of precognition. She laughed and said he should stop watching sci-fi, and then she threatened to make him sit through _Star Wars_. He dropped the subject of her abilities right then and there.

"Hey, Dad," Sam said, hugging Jacob.

Jack stood nervously beside her, shifting his weight from heel to toe, heel to toe. It was annoying Daniel, who had already been waiting when they arrived. He elbowed Jack to stop.

Jacob's greeting snapped Jack out of his dooming thoughts and he gulped. "How are ya, Jake?" he asked, shaking the Tok'ra's hand.

"Better than last you saw me. I believe I was rescuing you and my half-dressed daughter from a planet where she ended up after you killed her and sent her to Ascension."

Jack gulped again, but Jacob seemed to laugh and move on to greet Daniel. Sam smiled at him but his heart still beat incessantly. Again he felt like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Only the cookie jar was 5'9, blonde, and had legs that wouldn't stop.

"How about we get something to eat, Dad?" Sam broke the tension in Jack's heartstrings.

He watched as father and daughter walked to the bulkhead exit, waiting for him to join them. He ran to catch up and before he knew it, he found himself admiring some green Jell-O and how the table looked through a gelatinous mass.

Sam sat beside him talking with Jacob about something… he wasn't paying any attention at all. He was more focused on how Jacob was going to rip him apart piece by piece.

Then he heard Sam say something like, "Dad…" and "We have something to tell you."

He snapped up to attention as her hand slipped into his and he abandoned his Jell-O sadly. "What's up?" Jacob asked, already seeing the answer in the look of terror in Jack's eyes. It was strange to see a black-ops colonel tremble.

Sam took in a deep breath and said, "Dad, for a little while now, especially after Adrienne left, we've been…"

"Making plans," Jack interrupted.

Jacob looked at him viciously. "Wedding plans," Sam concluded, exhaling roughly after saying it.

Jacob's expression softened. "Uh, Sam, you hadn't mentioned… marriage."

"I know. I wanted to tell you in person. I know you never approved of Pete or anyone else I've dated so I was really worried--"

But Jacob had leaned back in his chair and had a pensive expression on. "Actually I knew about you two. But I didn't… I thought you were going to end up with Daniel."

Jack raised both eyebrows and looked at Sam. She looked back and shrugged. "No, Dad, Daniel and I are just friends."

"No I mean that's what Adrienne said. She said you loved Daniel."

Sam leaned forward and looked at her father crossly. "What were her _exact_ words?"

"'One day, she'll realize she lived for Daniel.' Yeah I was surprised too."

Jack excused himself and just left, got up and stormed out. Sam saw him go and felt her heart drop. "Go after him," Jacob said lightly but Sam just shook her head and leaned back on the chair.

"I love him, Dad. I love _Jack_."

"I know, honey. I just wish…"

"I'm pregnant," she said absentmindedly, forgetting any fore-planned speech. She didn't look up to see her father's reaction. Her mind was in another place. But she got up and went to look for Jack nonetheless, leaving Jacob to wonder if his words had been for the best.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't say that, Daniel," Janet had finished saying sweetly when Jack stormed in.

"You son of a bitch," he said through gritted teeth.

Daniel furrowed his brow and looked at him questioningly. But Jack's fist was already in swing, coming in full contact with Daniel's jaw and knocking him back onto his desk. Janet stood up and backed away quickly, yelling, "Colonel! What are you doing?"

"I trusted you," Jack growled as Sam came running in after him, pulling him back, but Jack had no intention of hitting him again.

"Jack, Adrienne didn't mean what you think!" Sam yelled, gripping Jack's arm for dear life.

Daniel opened his eyes wide. "Oh Jack, I swear. I only slept with her once. It was a mistake and it never happened again."

Jack's jaw dropped; his heart ran full of pure adrenaline. He was ready to swing again when Sam said defensively, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Adrienne!" he yelled. "Isn't that why you're punching me out of nowhere?"

Jack's heart stopped body slamming against his rib cages and he sighed. Sam loosened the grip on his arm but raised an eyebrow angrily at Daniel. "You did what?"

"She left and then there was… just no point in telling you. Wait, what do you think I did?" he asked as Janet helped him up, squinting at Jack in reproach.

"He thought you meant me," Sam said, sighing greatly. "Another one of Adrienne's little prophecies. She told my dad that--"

"What were her exact words, Sam? You know she loves to play with words."

"'One day, she'll realize she lived for Daniel,'" Jack said gruffly.

"Well that doesn't mean what you think, Jack. No offense Sam but I've got enough trouble on my mind," Daniel said and gave a small look over at Janet, rubbing his face.

Jack's anger started to fade but realization dawned on him. "You slept with Adrienne?"

"Don't say that so doubtfully, Jack," Daniel said at Jack's tone.

Jack narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Be glad you're still in one piece, Daniel."

He sighed. "God, what ever happened to having a desk job? There's been more drama around here after she left than when we were fighting big scary legions of aliens with megalomania issues!"

Jack shook his head dismissively and began to walk out of Daniel's office with a hand to his pained head. Sam gave Daniel an apologetic look and went after him. Daniel looked at Janet who looked away. It'd be a while before she could look him straight in the eye. He'd never know why.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**To be continued in PART THIRTY:**

--What other fallout predictions can be expected?

--How long before we see Adrienne again? Before SG-1 does?

--How much time do Sam & Jack have?

--What of Teal'c and Aileia? And Dionysus' rebirth?

--What threats linger just through the Gate?

--_And finally…_ what future awaits a man who makes his own destiny?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**READ? REVIEW!**

**-**

Or catch us on MySpace at:

**groups **_dot _**myspace **_dot _**com **_slash _**sg1freaks **

---- or ----

**www **_dot _**myspace **_dot _**com **_slash _**ariadneinlove **


	30. A Special Note

-----

**LEVEL 28: **A special note from yours truly...

-----

I'm sorry to say this is not PART THIRTY, though you can read a small excerpt from it at the end. This is actually a temporary chapter meant to explain why I haven't been writing the last two months. No, I have not abandoned the story, merely set it aside as I write me a new masterpiece, one whose fan base has more than quadrupled this one. I'm ridiculously excited about it.

If you're interested in Harry Potter FanFiction and still want to pursue my writing, join The Quarter Moon Gamble right here on FanFiction. Go to my userpage and click "Homepage" or look me up under my new name: NeuroticMuse413.

-

Thank you all who have followed me this far and know that Level 28 will be continued in a few weeks, at which time you'll be able to see through the eyes of Adrienne into the future and her voyage through time, desperate to find home... as Jack and Sam grow to love and mourn, as Teal'c marries and grow the spawn of a lost romance, and as Daniel learns how to move on to find a new love and a new life only to see the return of an old foe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

**AND NOW!**_ An excerpt from_ **PART THIRTY: **"The Evil Duck"  
**_In this scene, Daniel and Jack are having a conversation about their last mission, celebrating in a restaurant the end of SG-1._  
**

_"How was the mission?" Daniel asked. "See anything special?" _

_"Nope," Jack began. "Just a duck by a lake, a really lame duck. Not like the metaphorical lame duck. I mean an actual duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something." _

_"Was it an evil duck at least?" Daniel asked hopefully. _

_"Oh yes. You could hear its cackle in the next valley. An evil, lame cackle," Jack said, greeting Sam with as smile as she walked in. Jack had been complaining about the lame duck since they'd first seen it by the lake. _

_She raised an eyebrow, trying very hard not to laugh. "Actually, a duck's quack doesn't echo." _

_"How could anyone possibly know that?" Jack asked, kissing her hello and watching her sit across from them. _

_"I dunno. Take a duck to a cave if you don't believe me." _

_"There aren't exactly a lot of caves around here." _

_Daniel squinted his eyes deviously at Jack and Sam's confliction of a goddamned duck. "Make one." _

_"Huh," Jack said, taking the bottle from Daniel. "Yeah no more beer for you." _

_"You keep saying that but the six-packs just keep on coming." _

_"Well… I buy in bulk. I find it an excellent substitute for…food." _

_Sam nodded along. "Oh yes, it's true." _

_"Oh yes, we know," Daniel nodded back with great enthusiasm. _

_"How could you tell?" he responded, slightly hurt. _

_"Well from what we noticed, your mind was once a steel trap -- only after years of booze and hot dogs, it's begun to rust shut." _

_"Hey, Simpsons paraphernalia still manages through," he said defensively. _

_"And at times random words like paraphernalia." Sam smiled at him and his stomach fluttered but stopped suddenly. He felt sick. All he saw was her face as he slid down to the floor, Daniel's words the last to sound before he fell: "And stories of lame ducks." _

_And then he was gone..._

-----

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

**-----**


End file.
